too many questions in my head
by blenderfullasarcasm
Summary: "Sherlock. There is a child on our couch." ...Well. That wasn't the strangest thing Shinichi had ever woken up to hear, but it was definitely up there. He was going to need a lot of coffee today. (Cross-posted to AO3)
1. Chapter 1

"Sherlock. There is a child on our couch."

Well. That wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever woken up to hear.

He decided it probably wasn't enough to pay attention to and snuggled deeper into the cushion.

"Sherlock! Did you hear me?"

A grumble from roughly the same direction as the voice.

"No, he's not doing anything - "

More grumbles, getting closer now.

"No - I want to know where he came from!"

Grumble grumble. Footsteps.

Shinichi sighed, considering giving up on sleep. No, he ended up deciding. He was a teenaged boy who had just spent the last three days on a case. He deserved a little more sleep.

Something was wrong with that thought, though he couldn't quite put his finger on it through the hazy fog of sleep. It would still be there tomorrow, whatever it was. Sleep, however, probably wouldn't be. Besides, the couch was comfy, even though there was something digging into the bridge of his nose.

He suddenly became aware of a person standing over him, blocking out the sunlight (sunlight? Just how long had he slept?). The person seemed to be studying him, or perhaps that was just his paranoia talking. It was probably just Ran. Well, if she were here, it was time to get up before a karate chop to the head gave him no other option.

He blinked his eyes open blearily, mildly disoriented as he tried to sit up. Shouldn't his feet be touching the ground? Oh, wait, this wasn't his couch. That would explain it. Then whose was it?

He rubbed one of his eyes with the back of his hand - or at least tried to before he was met with an obstruction.

Oh. Right.

Glasses.

He was still Conan.

Conan carefully lowered his arm back to his side and looked at the people in front of him. One was in front of him, verging on invading his personal space and studying him like Conan would study a dead body. Speaking of which, there hadn't been one for a while. Not since he solved the three-day case. Judging by the angle of the sunlight coming through the window, it had been nearly eighteen hours. He was due for one soon, then.

The other man stood at the door, tensed with all the self-preservation the other lacked. The fact that he was wearing a jumper did nothing to diminish the intimidating aura that surrounded him. It kind of reminded him of the aura Black Organization members had, but not quite as cold. Actually, it was closer to Haibara when he'd done something particularly stupid.

That guy, he didn't recognize. The other, however... Hm. This could be bad. Conan smiled brightly, pitched his voice into the annoying childish octave he used around Ran and new police officers, and said, "Hi. Who are you?" He made his eyes as big as possible and tried to radiate _Look at me! I'm so cute! I can't possibly be a threat!_

The man at the door relaxed minutely, though something caused him to shift unconsciously into a military parade rest. _Interesting_ , thought Conan. _He still sees me as a threat._

...It was somewhat gratifying, actually. He was so used to being immediately discounted because of his size and apparent age that it was a nice change of pace to be automatically considered dangerous.

Well, time to put his mother's acting lessons to good use.

He blinked adorably, clearly waiting for an answer.

"I'm John Watson," the man by the door said finally. "And that berk's Sherlock Holmes," he added when it became obvious that Sherlock wasn't going to introduce himself, still stuck in his world of deductions.

Huh. So Sherlock had finally found his Watson. Good for him. What were the odds of someone named after a character in a book finding someone with the same name as their in-book partner, though? Well, considering it was Sherlock… Not too unexpected, really.

Judging by the decor of their flat, it was a relatively new development. The last time Conan had been there, the chair had been directly across from the couch instead of angled towards the television. The sink hadn't been full of dirty dishes - not to say that it was now, but there definitely hadn't been any soap on the counter then. Sherlock's experiments had been...not subdued, exactly, but localized, from the sticky note on the teapot saying 'OFF LIMITS!'

The most interesting piece of information, however, was that Sherlock was actually respecting the boundaries set by his roommate.

"I'm Edogawa Conan!" Conan said brightly, radiating sunshine and sparkles. Then he bit his lip and looked down at the ground contritely. "Um, I mean Conan Edogawa." The smile made a reappearance and he directed it shamelessly towards John because it _definitely_ wouldn't work on Sherlock before adding, "But you can call me Conan!"

Sherlock snorted derisively and muttered something under his breath. John levelled a glare at him, seeming to wordlessly communicate that that was, quote, 'a bit not good.' His eyes were amazingly expressive.

Conan filed the observation away and then took a moment to study John Watson. He had short, dusky brown hair (military cut, though it had been grown out, he noted) and held himself somewhat warily, as if he were waiting for something to attack. There seemed to be a slight stiffness in one of his shoulders, Conan found as John shifted slightly to his good leg, as well as a limp - probably psychosomatic, if the barely-used cane by the door was any indication. So, recent war veteran returned from service due to injuries.

But...steady hands, comfortable using both just about equally, and the way John had scanned Conan when he sat up meant Doctor John Watson, so he must have been a medic, but close enough to the battle to be...hm, shot, probably, judging by where the tension in his muscles was. An army doctor, then. Interesting. The only thing that he was missing (and it was more to satisfy his curiosity than anything) was...

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" he blurted before he could stop himself.

Both John and Sherlock turned abruptly to stare at him. Conan tried to keep his oblivious façade, but he could feel his smile growing steadily more strained. The silence stretched for ages.

"What?" asked John finally.

Conan winced internally, but with Sherlock's penetrating gaze locked on him, he couldn't exactly brush it off. Instead, he tried to radiate 'cute' again, instead of _ohcrapIjustmessedupBIGTIME_.

"Huh?" was a far better response than repeating what he had actually said, though it didn't appear that they were buying it. Sherlock's gaze drilled into him intensely, and if Conan knew anything about him, it was that being studied by him was not good for secrets. And since he had secrets to keep...

"Oh, I asked if you served in Afghanistan or Iraq," he said with the most innocent voice he could muster - the one he used when Ran had tried to use his phone to nearly disassemble his carefully refined new identity. This was starting to become a survival mechanism,

acting cute. That might have some repercussions when - when, not if - he had his body back. Conan nearly winced at the thought of one of Ran's karate kicks. No! This was not the time to be distracted, especially not with HIM of all people in the room.

"Afghanistan..." the doctor said slowly. "How did you - "

"How did I know that you were in the army?" Conan interrupted. That was a good question. What would a reasonable explanation be? One that they would both believe? Or maybe deflection was a better tactic. "Ran-neechan says I'm really smart, Hattori-niichan, too!"

...And he'd just given away his nationality. Great. It would be too much to ask for Sherlock to ignore those honorifics. Though, to be fair, Sherlock could probably deduce his nationality from his clothing. And his accent. But his English wasn't that terrible, so maybe not?

Oh, but there was also the name order thing earlier.

Yeah, Sherlock probably knew.

Ugh. He needed coffee.

John stared at him for a moment, then decided that this wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever happened in 221B. He shook his head, sighed, and walked purposefully to the kitchen. Conan perked up when he heard boiling water, but nearly visibly deflated when he heard the doctor call, "Sherlock, do you want any tea?" Tea, not coffee. Damn.

Though, really, he shouldn't have bothered to get his hopes up - it was evident from their carpet, John's teeth, and Sherlock's arms that neither of them drank coffee with any regularity.

"No," Sherlock replied curtly, still studying Conan. John ducked out of the kitchen briefly to ask, "Conan, would you like anything?"

Conan opened his mouth the respond, but before he could say anything -

"He'll have coffee," said Sherlock abruptly, turning to pin John with his sharp gaze.

John, for his part, blinked slowly before saying, "Sherlock. He's _five years old_."

"Wrong."

"I'm seven!" Conan agreed, holding up six fingers.

Sherlock snorted. Conan looked at his fingers, counted them, then put up another. "It was my birthday last week," he added, smiling brightly.

"Wrong," Sherlock muttered under his breath, then looked thoughtful. "Hm. Half wrong."

John looked at him for a moment, bewildered. "How can someone be half wrong?"

"Just look at his shoes!"

John obliged. To him, they looked like regular red Converse - maybe a tad old-fashioned, but that was making a comeback, wasn't it? He sighed and gave up. "I don't know what you want me to see, Sherlock. Conan, would you like some coffee?"

"Yes, please." Hey, if he was offering...

As soon as John left, Conan snapped his attention towards the man crouching on the floor less than a meter away. He shifted slightly, swinging his feet childishly. "Hey, hey, Holmes-san, how'd you know I like coffee? Ran-neechan doesn't like to let me have any." Much to his displeasure. He let his expression fall into a pout, which he didn't even really have to fake.

Sherlock snorted again. "Your reaction when you heard the boiling water, obviously."

Conan gritted his teeth silently. Yes, it was obvious to a detective, but children asked obvious questions, and he was trying to stay in character.

John's voice wafted into the living room along with the smell of Conan's first true love. "Sherlock, remember what we talked about?"

"Not good?" "

Conan is seven. He won't know all the things you do. Though be probably knows more in other areas."

Conan's interest was piqued. What could he possibly know more about than Sherlock bloody Holmes did?

Sherlock groaned and flopped dramatically into the chair behind him, limbs sprawling. "You're never going to let that go, are you?"

"What?" John asked as he returned with a great bearing two cups of tea and one - smaller - cup of coffee. "That you still don't know that the Earth goes around the sun?"

Sherlock grumbled something under his breath and Conan barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes, pasting a bewildered expression on his face. So Sherlock was still deleting things he found unimportant. Even though they were common knowledge - well, he supposed that was John's purpose, or one of them at least.

"What was that?"

"I said, obviously I won't delete it again!"

Oh, now that was interesting. John had only been living at 221B for less than half a year, if one were to judge by the condition of the chairs and floor, simultaneously taking into account the amount of dust under the furniture. And yet, Sherlock was paying attention to his opinions, even if he buried under layers of snark.

"So I know more about planets than Holmes-san?" he asked, immediately regretting it when it caused both of them to focus on him. This was what sleep deprivation did to him. It made him make stupid life choices. Seriously.

"I was talking about common knowledge, actually." John was studying him now, too - but not in a 'what the hell is going on with this kid's brain' way like Sherlock. His expression was more like 'what the hell is this kid doing here?' or 'where the hell did this kid come from?' - which, to be honest, Conan would also like to know because last he was aware, he was at home in Japan.

"Oh. Really? Because Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko are always making fun of me for not knowing stuff about Kamen Yaiba or being bad at video games." The less said about Haibara, the better.

Sherlock snorted. Conan thought it was rather obnoxious. John seemed to agree, because he levelled a glare at Sherlock.

Sherlock was unaffected.

"Video games are not common knowledge."

John rolled his eyes so hard that he probably strained something before turning to Conan and explaining what common knowledge actually was, finishing with, "It isn't just something all your friends know - it's something that everyone over the age of five knows."

Conan nodded in all the right places and plastered an interested expression to his face.

Sherlock snorted again. "I don't know why you're bothering, John. He clearly isn't listening."

"What are you talking about, Holmes-san? Watson-sensei is very interesting and I like learning things. Mouri-jiisan never explains anything!" Not that he ever needed to, but they didn't need to know that.

Wait. Shit. He'd done it again.

He really needed coffee. Coffee saved him from terrible decisions.

"What does 'sensei' mean?" John asked in Sherlock general direction. "Should I be offended?"

Sherlock didn't answer because he was too busy studying Conan's socks. Honestly, Conan didn't know why John even bothered asking - though, he supposed it could be ingrained at this point to look to Sherlock for answers.

John sighed, handing Conan the small cup of coffee and placing one if the cups of tea near Sherlock.

"What does it mean?" he asked again, this time speaking to the person who was actually a native speaker.

Conan breathed in the smell of the coffee, closing his eyes to take it in. Coffee was his friend. It didn't need to question him or study him or try to uncover his identity. He belatedly realized that John had asked him a question. "Oh, it means doctor," he replied distractedly before downing about half his cup.

As soon as the taste hit his tongue, he realized that answering had been a terrible idea. Because now John was staring at him, too. And he could just about pass off knowing too much as just being smart once but the second time John would probably realize he was being deflected.

Conan cringed internally. This was why coffee was integral to his continuing existence.

John squinted at him and opened his mouth - probably to ask a question that Conan would have to think up an answer to pretty quickly - when Sherlock cut him off abruptly with, "Mouri, you said?"

Shit. Yeah, he was all set to be relieved about Sherlock distracting John, but then he remembered that oh, yeah, this is Sherlock bloody Holmes.

Seriously. Where was his head.

Maybe it was back in Japan, _where he was supposed to be._

John frowned, seemingly wracking his brains. "Mouri. Why do I recognize that name? Hm…"

Shit. Now there were two of them.

He opened his mouth to start bullshitting his way through his answers, then paused, actually thinking instead of reacting.

He _knew_ Sherlock Holmes.

Granted, he'd only spoken with him a few times and that had been ages ago, but he'd kept up with him by reading the news.

(Ran had called it 'mildly stalking.' He'd disagreed. She'd ripped a stop sign from the street. The topic had been dropped.)

But the point was that he didn't really have to hide from Sherlock. Well, yes, he had to hide his true identity, but he didn't have to hide his nationality or general information about himself.

(It wasn't as if he could, really.)

It would be easier to just focus on hiding his being Shinichi (because he actually had a slight chance of that happening) than hiding connections to his life in Japan. Giving away tidbits of information about being Conan could distract Sherlock from considering his real identity.

Well, hopefully.

Maybe.

It was a fifty-fifty chance, really.

If that.

Perhaps closer to ten percent.

Or less.

Besides, he trusted Sherlock Holmes almost as much as Hattori. Why was he letting his paranoia get the best of him?

John snapped his fingers triumphantly. "Kogoro Mori! That's it."

Conan winced internally at his accent. Just. Ugh.

"Yup! That's Mouri-jiisan. Takagi-keiji calls him Nemuri no Kogorou."

"Right! Sleeping Kogorou. The weird detective who solves crimes in his sleep. I've read about him on the internet."

Sherlock huffed, almost silently.

John seemed to miss it, more interested in Conan's response.

Hm. Conan found that intriguing. He catalogued the information before replying. "Yup, that's Occhan! He's the best detective in Tokyo."

Cue internal cringing, because _honestly_. No. Just. No. Ugh, saying it left a bad taste in his mouth.

He took another sip of coffee to hopefully wash it away.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Wrong."

John shot him A Look. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Sherlock."

Sherlock sniffed, crossing his arms and refusing to elaborate.

Conan smiled brightly. "It's okay, Watson-sensei. I meant that Mouri-no-occhan is the best at solving murders in Tokyo. Nakamori-keibu's probably better at catching thieves." And trying to catch Kaitou KID. But he wasn't going to mention that because it might bring up his "KID Killer" moniker, which he was more than happy to let fade into obscurity. "Takagi-keiji's good at legwork." Conan realized belatedly that he was starting to sound more like his actual age, because what kind of primary schooler from Japan knew the Japanese word for 'legwork,' much less the English one. "Satou-keiji's kinda scary, but she drives really fast." Yes, that was better. "And Megure-keibu does a lotta paperwork and background things and stuff."

Conan paused to take a sip of coffee, savoring it. As soon as he swallowed, it occurred to him that most grade schoolers didn't know that many police officers.

Well.

Hm.

Conan gave up trying to hide his coffee addiction and downed the last of his mug in one gulp before holding it out to John, who absently refilled it. A coffee addiction in a kid was strange, sure, but not as strange as the numerous other things he was trying to hide from Sherlock bloody Holmes.

(Honestly, _what_ made him think this was a good idea?)

(Well, it wasn't as if he really had a choice before he scoped out Sherlock's colleagues - because he didn't really _do_ friends, did he - because while Sherlock could probably be trusted, and John by extension, he wasn't so sure about the rest of them; he recalled seeing the name "Lestrade" a fair few times in the papers, among others. And although Sherlock probably would have figured out if they had connections to the criminal underworld, he did have a tendency to get caught up in The Case and ignore everything else...)

Who in their right mind would choose to visit Sherlock Holmes, of all people, when they were in hiding?

Not Conan. Which reminded him - how on earth did he end up here? Because, again. Beika and London weren't exactly next door neighbors.

Honestly, if he hadn't personally met the guy, he would say that this sounded like something KID would try to pull. But given that KID had some modicum of an idea that he had a secret identity, he wouldn't purposely try to ruin it.

(Hopefully.)

John looked mostly lost, and a little puzzled, while Sherlock's eyes narrowed. John shook his head slightly, likely trying to process Conan's brief rant on which Japanese police officers were best at what (oh, it really was a mistake to start talking without coffee). "Sorry, Conan - I think I got most of that, but what are 'kay-jees' and 'kay-boos'?"

Conan blinked to buy himself some time before nonchalantly downing most of the coffee in his mug. Should he answer truthfully? Or… "They're the people Occhan works with. The people who solve crimes. You know, like, um… Like at Scotland Yard? Um. I forgot the word in English. Sorry."

One of John's eyebrows began climbing towards his hairline. "You mean, the police? They're police officers?"

"Yeah! That's what a keiji is. But a keibu is more like, um… What's the one above that?" This was becoming extremely tedious. "Like, not a police officer but his boss. But not the big boss. Um. A mini boss?" Come on, come on. Ugh.

"John, don't patronize the boy. It's obvious he means 'inspector.'" This was accompanied by a shrewd look - at his glasses, probably, but conceivably also his hair or eyes. Conan, unfortunately, didn't have the best perspective to figure it out.

John rolled his eyes. "Right, yes, excuse me for not immediately understanding a foreign language."

"Please. It was obvious." In this case, Conan had to agree with Sherlock. It really had been fairly obvious, especially given the clues he had tried to blatantly push towards John. Then again, it was possible that John had also forgotten the word briefly, as people tended to do when put on the spot to come up with a word. And Sherlock had always had a talent for picking up languages. His spoken Japanese had been passable by the end of their first weeklong visit ages ago, in any case, though it was possible that it had atrophied from lack of use.

"Yes, that's the word!" Conan smiled brightly, diffusing the potential row before it could begin and stupidly drawing more attention to himself. Why hadn't he learnt his lesson? Oh, well. May as well continue and give himself some reason for his vocabulary. "Is that how you pronounce it? I saw it in those books with my name on it and I wondered. They were really hard to read. I think I maybe should have started with the Japanese version."

Wait, was retrospective thinking rare in seven-year-olds?

Probably. Shit.

John opened his mouth, brow furrowed in confusion, but someone's phone beeped before he could figure out what to say. Though it could conceivably be a pager, Conan mused, given that Watson was clearly actively practicing his profession ( _the lingering smell of antibiotics, a quick up-and-down scan of Conan when he stood up, how his weight was distributed in his shoes_ ), though likely not full-time - probably mostly clinic work ( _wear-patterns on his shoes and the elbows of the white coat hanging by the door, and more obviously_ Sherlock _, who tended to demand attention_ ), which wasn't really something that would require a pager. Though, of course, he wasn't particularly familiar with the medical system in England.

John brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose and began to massage it in a clearly practiced motion. "Sherlock, are you going to answer that?"

Sherlock ignored him, as he was wont to do, focusing instead on Conan, who realized belatedly that he was probably being turned into a Case.

Which. Wasn't necessarily good.

John sighed, apparently used to this type of response, and routed around in Sherlock's bathrobe pockets until he managed to find his phone.

...Which appeared to be a Nokia.

Conan almost choked trying to turn his laugh into a coughing fit. He wondered if it had been John or Mycroft who had finally had it with Sherlock breaking or experimenting on his phone and decided to give him something significantly more durable. He waved away the concerned look John shot his way and instead refilled his coffee mug.

John glanced down at the phone again. "It's Lestrade. Looks like he has a case."

He handed the phone back to Sherlock, who gave the message a rapid once-over before springing to his feet and heading for his big, dramatic coat. Some things never change.

 _Wow, the police actually come to you with the cases? They don't just turn up wherever you go? What a luxury._

At least coffee allowed him enough of a filter that he didn't say his thoughts out loud. Conan wondered if actively seeking out a dead body would in any way mitigate his 'corpse magnet' powers.

He shrugged mentally. May as well give it a shot. When was the next time he'd have an opportunity like this, where he went to the bodies and they didn't come to him? And anyway, it would be a good way to scope out some of the people around Sherlock.

"I wanna go!" This saccharine voice was hell on the vocal cords.

John immediately vetoed that request. "No. A million times, 'no.'"

Sherlock looked intrigued, which John seemed to catch out of the corner of his eye. "Sherlock, you are not taking a seven-year-old to a crime scene. That's a terrible idea."

Sherlock somehow managed to roll his eyes audibly. "Obviously, as this "Sleeping Kogorou's" ward, he's been present at at least one of the apparently many crime scenes, likely more. It's not like an _English_ murder is going to be different enough to permanently scar him. Really, what are you so worked up about, John? This case is hardly a five."

"I thought you didn't leave the flat for anything less than an eight."

"Lestrade's case is a five. Mine is a nine, possibly even edging on a ten."

"Oh, and what case is that?"

"The Case of the Mysteriously Appearing Primary Schooler. That should be a good enough title for your blog." And with that, he swept out of the room and down the stairs, coat flapping dramatically behind him.

Conan smothered a snicker before it could escape. Honestly, some things never changed.

John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "When did I sign up for this?" he muttered to himself. Then, a little louder: "Right. Conan, you stay here while I take care of that overdramatic sod. Mrs. Hudson is downstairs if you need anything. Telly remote's on the table."

Then, he followed Sherlock down the stairs, forgetting his cane by the door.

Conan waited for about five whole seconds before scampering down the stairs after them, just slipping into the taxi before John shut the door.


	2. Chapter 2

John didn't even notice Conan was sitting next to him (basically the _only_ advantage of being so short - he was out of almost every adult's direct line of sight) until approximately halfway through their trip, and by then it was _clearly_ far too late to turn back, according to Sherlock. Especially since Conan probably would find his way to the scene anyway…

...Or another body would drop nearby. But John didn't know that, and neither did Sherlock - even if he _had_ figured out who Conan really was, which wasn't exactly likely especially at this point, the last time he'd been around Sherlock, he'd come across maybe a body a week and perhaps two at worst - and Conan wasn't too keen to let him in on the secret. Well, perhaps not a secret. A curse, perhaps, if he were feeling whimsical. But there really was no scientific reason he could think of that would explain a steadily increasing frequency of coming across murders.

His mother had told him about the first time he'd come across a corpse, when he could hardly walk, and how he'd somehow managed to help his father capture the culprit. It was one of her favorite party stories, at least while he was present. Her next anecdote took place a couple of years later, once he was actually able to talk in complete sentences, which he _knew_ was embellished because he could remember that one. It was pretty hard to forget saving your future best friend from being kidnapped. And, of course, the strange encounter with his "younger brother" who had been a good ten years older than him, at the very least, but that one didn't really count as a _case,_ per se, since no one was hurt, psychologically or otherwise. Then, a few years later, a family friend had been burned alive while they were in the audience - which was the first case he could remember vividly, in all its details, because the police had been so _utterly stupid_ in insisting that it had been an accident - something about not checking the safety measures ahead of time - when it was _obvious_ that _he had been murdered_ _-_

Conan took a minute to focus on his breathing ( _in for four, hold for seven, out for eight, repeat_ ) because something about that case just _got_ to him every time it crossed his mind. It was the only case he could remember that he had never definitively solved - mostly because his father had turned as white as a sheet and hadn't let him out of his sight until they'd left, which had been as quickly as possible. For some reason, only his mother had gone to the funeral, and then they'd never seen the family ever again. Not even a New Year's card - which was strange, because he vaguely remembered there being a kid about his age, and parents were usually fairly enthusiastic about sharing milestones with other parents…

 _In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight. Repeat._

He had a copy of the police report on his phone - both of them - which was pretty stupid of him, especially since he practically had the file memorized and, honestly, it wasn't like there was much information in there to begin with. It was almost as if the officers in charge of the crime scene had deliberately been as vague as possible and then done the bare minimum to not be seen as shirking their duty. It was just - _why?_ Even that idiot Yamamura over in Gunma did his utmost to find the person responsible, despite his general tendency to believe supernatural spirits were at work. So why had those officers been so - so - so - _lazy!_

 _In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight. Repeat._

After that incident, he'd begun running into crimes with an alarming frequency - once every couple of months, then every other month, then every month… The last time he'd met up with Sherlock in person was about three years ago, a little over one before he'd been turned into Conan. By then, he was up to about once a week.

(Maybe he was there to make sure the detective named after his idol was worthy of the name. Maybe he wasn't.)

(There were times when he absolutely _cringed_ while remembering his younger self.)

His corpse-finding frequency stayed about steady over that year, until he became Conan. Then, suddenly, he was coming across a mystery almost every other day.

It was exhausting, true. But he couldn't deny that his observation skills had skyrocketed in sensitivity.

But, again, he'd never tried actively seeking out a body once the suspects had fled the crime scene. He wondered absently if it would have any effect on his corpse-magnet tendencies.

"Conan, are you alright?"

Oh. John had noticed him. Possibly his breathing pattern. It was fairly common for staving off anxiety or fear - and thus recognizable to a doctor - even if he usually used it to cool his anger.

"Yeah, Watson-sensei!" he replied brightly. "I'm just tired. My coffee hasn't kicked in yet."

Since that breathing pattern was also indicative of sleep, it wasn't too far a stretch. The rhythm forced the lungs to mimic the parasympathetic nervous system, which calmed the body, and was akin to one's breathing while asleep.

...Conan really needed to stop getting distracted, especially with Sherlock Holmes nearby. John Watson was no slouch, either.

Well, at least now he was better at acting. Two years of constant practice did wonders, and now he had an opportunity to fix some of his mistakes from when he first started developing 'Conan.'

He'd already given away his nationality and his ability to speak English almost as well as a native. He'd automatically given his (fake) name, so he was stuck with that terrible decision again. At least he was sure to respond to it after over a year of living with it. They knew about his coffee addiction, and at least some of his intellect. They knew he had read the Sherlock Holmes books, and that he had some skill at deduction. He could probably pass that off as something he had learnt from Mouri, even if it made him cringe internally. He could also go with Hattori, but he'd never let him live it down.

...Assuming he ever talked to him again, of course. Did he even have his phone?

A slight shift of his weight confirmed that he did indeed have two phones in his pockets. Good. He should probably call Haibara and make sure she wasn't freaking out at some point today. And, you know. Figure out if she had something to do with him somehow appearing on _Sherlock Holmes' couch._

Well. On the bright side, he could definitely turn down the obnoxiously childlike attitude a bit.

But he probably shouldn't let on that he played violin or had perfect pitch, because not only was the latter rather rare, Sherlock knew Shinichi had it and used it to do the former (because his relative pitch _sucked_ ).

Soccer, on the other hand, he could probably pass off as being childish. It was common enough, especially in England, and it was fairly typical of a child to want to run around outside.

The problem he'd had with trying to hide his identity from Ran was that he'd acted almost exactly the same as he had the first time around, mixed with a bit of his true age. He wasn't particularly worried about that here, mostly because he hadn't been around Sherlock for very long last time - about three days, probably, which wasn't really long enough to form the kind of instinct Ran had about him. And he was pretty sure that neither Sherlock nor John spent very much time around children, so they probably didn't really have all that much of an idea of how a child should be acting anyway. Also, Sherlock had never seen him this young, unless he'd gone digging…

He wasn't too worried about his appearance giving him away at this point. He'd been working on differentiating himself enough from his former self to look more like a relative, albeit freakishly similar-looking. He'd begun gradually dying his hair lighter shades, in small enough increments that it appeared natural enough. Now, his hair was maybe a few shades lighter than Kazuha's, though not quite as light as Sonoko's. His glasses were a little more useful now that he'd actually got prescription lenses, which he had probably needed for a while and hadn't admitted to himself. The lenses made his eyes look bigger, which in turn made his nose appear smaller.

It was enough to make him not look like a copy of mini-Shinichi.

(He wasn't _completely_ oblivious. It was dangerous to look like a carbon copy of his younger self, and anyway it helped Ran separate the two versions of him - not that she knew, of course, or would ever know if he could help it.)

(Maybe he had learnt about how to disguise himself by watching KID, maybe not. There was no way he would be telling the thief one way or the other.)

But the biggest change was his former attention-seeking behavior and casual arrogance. Granted, he still couldn't resist a deduction show, but now he used other people to show off his deductions and tried to stay as far from the spotlight as possible.

(Or as much as Jirokichi allowed him to, in cases of KID.)

So that, at least, wasn't going to be an issue. But he should probably come up with something to differentiate himself decisively from Shinichi. And also a more rounded child persona wouldn't go amiss. He honestly had no idea why none of his teachers had noticed anything off about him. Haibara was generally better in that respect, albeit because she tried to disappear into the background. Most of the time, she came across as a shy little girl to strangers, and perhaps a little too mature to people who spent a lot of time around that could potentially be explained by relatively mundane things, so it wasn't very noteworthy.

Which was, you know, _a lot_ better than his Conan persona, which was inconsistent at best and unconvincing almost any other time.

Which was exactly why he was trying to fix that, right this very second, before he had to get out of the car and resume the act -

Oh.

They were already there.

Well. There went that idea.

This was what he got for getting distracted so easily.

Sleep deprivation sucked. He wished he had thought to bring a thermos or something so he could drink some more coffee - John's brew wasn't half-bad.

He decided as he got out of the car that he was going to try to tone down the obnoxiousness and intelligence, maybe up the curiosity, and take a leaf out of Haibara's book - try melting into the background.

...well, as much as a child could at a murder scene. Which was actually surprisingly well, at least in Japan. Then again, Division One had become sort of…acclimated to his presence, what with the sheer volume of murder cases he was involved in.

He had a feeling it wouldn't be so easy to do the same with Scotland Yard.

Not, of course, that the Japanese police were in any way gullible, for the most part. It was just that they either allowed him to prove his worth or had some sort of superstition that he somehow got wrapped up in.

...He was pretty sure a good number of them thought he was either being followed by a shinigami or actually was one himself. And, hey, if that meant it was easier to get them to let him investigate, without drawing too much attention to the fact that _a primary school student was investigating the scene of a murder…_

Well. It was helpful. And, honestly, possibly true, considering all the cases he somehow became involved in just by walking down the street.

Conan tagged along behind Sherlock and his billowing coat, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. It was pretty obvious which house was the crime scene. The whole street was blocked off by patrol cars and caution tape - granted, it was a short street, with only a few houses on it - but it was the middle house that was also thoroughly taped, thus making it rather obvious.

Conan studied the houses. It looked like they were in a somewhat upscale neighborhood, though not particularly upper class. He was pretty sure he'd heard the style referred to as "upper middle class" on some BBC show, but he wasn't really sure how accurate that information was. The street itself was a little worse for wear, cracking a little in places, and there appeared to be a small pothole a dozen or so yards away.

The house, on the other hand, looked well kept. Almost immaculate, actually, which was slightly disconcerting. It was painted an odd shade of yellow, about the same color as a cooked egg yolk, while the rest of the houses on the block were various shade of white. The house smothered in crime scene tape seemed to be the only one to have had a fresh coat of paint in years. Conan noticed as he got closer to the scene that it was actually only the front that had been painted - all the houses on the block were pressed together like books on a very full shelf, the kind where it takes a couple of minutes to take one off it - so it wasn't incredibly obvious, but the areas where the houses weren't quite level were chipped and peeling. The front of the house had apparently previously been a light blue color - almost a periwinkle. The windows were scrubbed within an inch of their lives - Conan could actually see the patterns of where they were wiped in the fluctuating thickness of the glass - and the curtains were drawn on the inside (likely bought used, given their lightly threadbare nature.)

Conan was stopped somewhat abruptly at the tape - or, rather, Sherlock and John stopped at the tape, and Conan (who was more used to running under the tape and pretending it didn't exist) had to stumble to an abrupt halt behind them in order to prevent himself from bumping into them. Why had they - ah. Sherlock's coat had blocked his view of the man who had been standing slightly behind a police car. He had silvery hair and looked like he could probably do with a nap. Maybe two.

"Lestrade." Sherlock inclined his head briefly before ducking under the tape and making his way towards the house. John made a cross between an apologetic and exasperated expression at Lestrade - presumably the same who had messaged Sherlock about the case - before bending slightly to fit under the tape Lestrade lifted for him. Conan followed behind him, doing his best to stay out of Lestrade's line of sight. Which was surprisingly easy, especially since John Watson was not exactly someone you would call 'tall' or 'broad,' and therefore not exactly ideal for hiding behind. Conan honestly wasn't expecting to make it past the tape, but Lestrade just turned and led them towards the house. Apparently he was too distracted to look below his eye level.

Conan was somewhat surprised by that, once Lestrade started explaining the case to John, unaware of him listening in. Then again, Lestrade did seem to be the kind of person who looked directly into someone's eyes when talking to them. It was a decent tactic for witness statements and interrogation - Takagi-keiji used it, as did Conan himself on occasion - but Lestrade seemed to have made a habit of it.

...Or, he was looking to figure out what John knew about what was happening? No, that didn't quite fit…

"Honestly, we aren't sure what happened. All we know for certain is that Hubert and Jane Reynolds threw a dinner party yesterday to celebrate their daughter winning something or other, and now their daughter is dead."

John paused, giving Lestrade A Look. "Is that really all the information you have?"

Lestrade shook his head. "No, but here's where it gets weird: the parents sent the girl to bed at around ten, right. The guests didn't leave until about two in the morning. The parents go up to their room and see a ransom note on the bed. They check their daughters room and she's not there. So they call the police, who turn up by 6am. The police search the house just in case the kid is hiding somewhere. At about nine, they find the stairs that lead to the basement - "

"Sorry, it took them three hours to search a two-story cottage?"

Lestrade shrugged as they entered the house. "Look at it."

They did.

"Ah," said John, more an exhalation of disbelief than a reply.

Just in the entryway, there were nearly half a dozen cupboards and cabinets that Conan could probably fit in without too much trouble and a couple he could probably stand up in and still have a good-sized space above him. They were all engraved or painted and radiated the impression that they were expensive, though Conan had the sneaking suspicion that they were probably bought from garage sales, given the sheer number and the fact that some of the scratches on the lower portions were consistent with pets, which the Reynolds most assuredly did not have since fur wasn't mixed in with the dust that had accumulated in the corners of the hallway. The name 'Maria' was carved in childish handwriting, usually with a backwards 'r,' on at least half of the cabinets near the floor, as if a child had been lying on her stomach while practicing writing her name. The scratches were a few years old, though, so either the parents had noticed or she had grown out of it.

"The rest of the house is like this, then?"

Lestrade looked like he was trying ignore a thousand air horns blaring in his brain. "Yes. Exactly like this. Honestly, I'm not even sure this place has walls. Maybe it's just made of cabinets."

Conan looked around and silently agreed. It was entirely possible.

"I'm surprised that it only took three hours."

"Yeah, well. I think they were maybe 75% done when they went to check the basement. And that's where they found the girl, wrists and ankles tied together and duct tape over her mouth and neck. Preliminary examination says she was beaten to death, probably with a bat. Time of death was between midnight and about four in the morning. We'll know more after the autopsy, but I figured we may as well let you take a crack at it since the parents expressly requested Sherlock. They're our main suspects for now, but that's mostly because we couldn't find a motive for anyone else at the party. I mean, none of them are exactly hurting for money…" Lestrade trailed off. "It isn't really _weird_ , per se, as much as not being able to find any motives."

"Please. Have you even _looked_ at the body, Lestrade?"

And, yup. There was Sherlock, who apparently _lived_ for jumpscares, arms crossed and standing in front of what was presumably the basement door, tapping his fingers against his arm impatiently. He didn't wait for Lestrade to respond, instead throwing a "hurry up, John" over his shoulder as he swept down the staircase into the depths of the basement.

Lestrade sighed and followed him, John close behind and Conan bringing up the rear in an attempt to be inconspicuous. It didn't really work, because as soon as he saw the corpse his mind froze.

 _Ayumi?_

 _(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)_

 _(In for four hold for seven out for eight.)_

 _(Inforfourholdforsevenoutforeight.)_

 _(fourseveneight.)_

Suddenly he was next to the body, hands shaking slightly as he checked her pulse, hoping against hope that his luck would maybe give him this one.

Nothing.

 _(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)_

But…

Ah.

Her wrist was the wrong size. Too small, too weak. This girl didn't even play soccer, much less do the kind of detective work Ayumi did.

Okay.

Okay.

 _(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)_

Ayumi was probably back in Japan (like he _should_ be), and anyway, the girl didn't really look like her much except for some superficial similarities. Short brown hair, pink pyjamas, headband, approximately eight to ten years old...

( _She's FINE. She's not even here. Stop worrying about her._ )

Lestrade had turned to talk to John, so he just missed the blue child-sized blur that had invaded his crime scene, but Conan wasn't so fortunate with the other member of Scotland Yard in the room.

"What the hell is a _kid_ doing, messing up my crime scene?"

 _Please._ Conan nearly snorted derisively, but stopped himself because, one, he was supposed to be a child and two, he was working on depleting his arrogance levels. Besides, it was obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes that he had avoided stepping anywhere but where the footprints of the other officers (presumably those who found the corpse) were.

He knew how to preserve a crime scene, damn it.

... Probably as well as a good chunk of the police force. Possibly even better, due to the sheer amount of practice he'd had.

(How many murders in the past year? At least a hundred and fifty, and it was only May.)

(Serial killers were the worst.)

The man who had spoken was unremarkable, but not in the way that John Watson was unremarkable - he looked like he was trying hard to be something special but just sort of slipped back into mediocrity. He had short, medium brown hair, styled carefully at one point but ruined by the London wind. His nose was long, and he had squinty eyes, which gave the impression that he was either perpetually irritated or in desperate need of glasses.

(Conan would know.)

His white button down was neatly pressed, peeking out from underneath his standard-issue pale blue, papery-plastic Tyvek suit (which was somewhat novel to Conan, since he generally was there before the investigators arrived and was therefore part of the crime scene - there wasn't really much point in wearing something to prevent contamination). No tie, though, so he was attempting to cultivate an air of indifference to his appearance.

That, or he was emulating Sherlock.

Both indicated an intrinsic regard for what people thought of him as well as a deep need to be perceived as not caring what people thought of the way he looked. He was the sort of person who, if he were so inclined, would take a carefully staged picture and title it "just woke up."

His watch, on the other hand, said "my wife picked this out for me and I hate it but I can't let her know so I'll just wear it and hope it breaks."

In short, he seemed like a bit of a twat.

(Also, anyone who referred to a crime scene as 'theirs' usually had an ego approximately as large as - well, sixteen year old Shinichi's.)

"Who is that? And where'd he come from?" Lestrade looked like he didn't actually want to know the answer.

Conan ignored him and began examining the body in front of him.

John sighed. "His name is Conan and he appeared on our couch this morning."

"That's not actually what I meant, but I guess that's good to know. Why is he _here?_ And what on earth possessed you to bring him with you to a murder investigation?!"

Hm. Interesting. The duct tape around her neck and mouth were tied abnormally (it was a little depressing that he actually knew what 'normal' was for restraining via duct tape) - a bit slapdash, especially around the neck. And - what was that?

John did a strange combination of a wince and a shrug, looking fed up with his life. "I know it sounds terrible, but he snuck into the cab with us and I didn't notice until it was too late to turn back."

"You - _didn't notice_?"

Conan fished a handkerchief from the Ziploc bag in his pocket and used it to cover his hand as he carefully peeled back the duct tape wrapped around her neck and the support beam behind her, which was keeping her body mostly upright.

"In my defense, I did ask him to stay in the flat."

" _Why is no one worried about the child contaminating the crime scene?"_ Ah. The fake posh git.

The other posh git (the real one who just didn't see the point in abiding by the way society worked) spoke up from where he was studying Conan, standing carefully in the corner to maximize his field of vision. "He isn't, though, is he."

Conan hid a smirk with his shoulder as he took a pair of tweezers from a different Ziploc bag and carefully picked a thread off of the sticky side of the tape. So Sherlock had noticed - which, to be fair, wasn't all that surprising. It was actually more astonishing that the police _hadn't_ noticed.

...He could see why they relied on Sherlock Holmes.

"Did you even _watch_ him running towards the corpse?" Sherlock continued, hardly pausing for breath. "He only stepped where the footprints of the forensics and officers are - obvious, really, standard issue shoes or one of the two top-selling types for the Yard - and avoided anything that could potentially be evidence. He only touched her wrist with his bare hand, despite his clearly emotional state, and then used a handkerchief for the rest. Not something that's very typical here, but perfectly practical for someone of his nationality - "

"Which is?"

"He's Japanese, obviously, Anderson. Don't be dull. It's evident from his hands and accent - "

"His accent is American, Sherlock. And they haven't heard him speak yet."

"John. I'm disappointed in you. Can't you hear the slightest tinge of a Japanese accent? Even without that, I would have expected you to at least pick up on the suffixes - "

Lestrade opened his mouth, but Sherlock cut him off.

"If you would let me finish, detective inspector. I presume you are about to berate us for bringing him on a case. Your concern for the child's mental state is indeed admirable, but misplaced on this occasion. Have you never bothered to read a newspaper from outside the country?"

Lestrade sighed, fed up. "Generally, I don't bother with the newspaper at all. I prefer the internet - why do you - "

"I have to keep up with my Japanese somehow, and they report remarkably frequently on the extraordinary amount of exceptionally inventive murders."

"Figures," the forensics guy, presumably Anderson, muttered under his breath.

Sherlock pretended he didn't exist, and Conan understood why. He had a very punchable face. Presumably, he was good at his job, though it was a bit strange to hear him snarking at the consultant they had requested the presence of personally. England was weird.

(The few times he'd actually been called in to figure out a murder in Japan, as opposed to just being in the right place at the wrong time, he'd been treated with respect - if also annoyance because he had been an arrogant teenager.)

(He didn't remember exactly how much of that had been an act, because at least a little bit had been overcompensating when he wasn't quite a hundred percent sure, and a small part of him seemed to recall thinking something about avoiding too many crazy fans? But, honestly, he didn't even know how his old self had thought anymore.)

(It felt longer than a few years.)

"Had you bothered to glance at just about any reputable Japanese newspaper - even a translated one," Sherlock continued, for all the world as if Anderson didn't exist. "You would notice that approximately eighty percent of the murders in Tokyo, and a reasonable percentage elsewhere, involve one Mouri Kogorou, usually accompanied by this child. The police try to keep him from the media spotlight, but a few rather enterprising photographers have placed him at numerous crime scenes - "

"I thought you didn't know who Sleeping Kogorou is?" John interrupted.

Sherlock sent him a scathing glance. "Please, John. Have you ever known me _not_ to have researched interesting murder occurrences?"

John conceded wordlessly, doing a strange sort of nod combined with half a shrug.

"Regardless, it's clear he has some idea of Japanese forensic procedure - " Sherlock continued, but Conan stopped paying attention because _huh._

He'd put the thread into an empty evidence bag he'd snatched from Anderson's kit while everyone was distracted by Sherlock (who was a decent replacement smokescreen) and had been examining it closely. It was thick and dark green, which was odd considering that the girl was wearing mostly white and pink ( _like Ayumi_ ).

Something else caught his eye as he glanced back at the body. Something about the tape…

Oh.

He carefully peeled the tape back further ( _cut with scissors, not ripped - why?_ ), until it was about halfway unwrapped from the victim's neck.

Underneath the tape, there were strangulation marks. They were oddly shaped - thin, irregular, at an atypical angle. Not a rope, but maybe a necklace? No Yoshikawa lines, so the vic hadn't been struggling. She either knew the perpetrator or had been drugged - or was so out of it from the premortem beating that she couldn't react to save her life.

Wait.

The bruising.

He replaced the tape before examining the victim's face carefully, having mostly avoided it other than a few quick glances up until that point ( _because she and Ayumi could be siblings - )_

Interesting.

There were some obviously postmortem bruises, likely from a baseball bat, but underneath that there appeared to be some premortem ones. They were shaped differently, though - fist-shaped, on the small side. Likely a personal grudge, then. And -

Something else was off about her face. Hm.

Ah - her teeth.

They were too perfect - pearly white, perfectly straight, none missing. Abnormal for a ten-year-old. Her eyebrows, too, were carefully plucked. And - he checked her nails to confirm - yup.

This girl had been a beauty queen.

Suddenly there were a whole lot more suspects.

Sherlock sounded like his rant was winding down (well, not so much a rant as a rapidfire delivery of clear, logical observations with a side helping of derision and condescension), so Conan took his turn to interrupt. "Hey, hey, Sherlock-niichan!"

(The first time they'd met, back when he was Shinichi, he'd called him 'Holmes-san,' and as he was trying to distance himself from that version of him…)

(It might be too late at this point, since he'd already called him 'Holmes-san' earlier, but hey. No harm in trying. Probably.)

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise that could potentially have been an acknowledgement of his existence, so Conan held up the evidence bag. "Isn't this strange?"

Sherlock glanced at the bag, then snatched it from Conan's hands and brought it closer to his face. His mouth split into a wide grin (that was, frankly, a little creepy). "Intriguing. This case may actually be a seven."

"Why? What is it?" Lestrade asked as John stepped forward to have a closer look.

"A dark green string," he reported, turning back to Lestrade.

Lestrade's eyebrows pinched together as he brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose to massage it. It was the look of a man who needed a cup of coffee approximately the size of a kiddie-pool.

Conan sympathized.

"Where did he find it?" Lestrade asked, possibly contemplating an IV drip for caffeine.

"More importantly, are you sure it didn't come off of _him?_ You know, when he _contaminated the crime scene_?" The fake posh git again. Conan would have thought that Sherlock had already covered the fact that he clearly knew how to preserve a crime scene.

This time it was John's turn to snort unattractively. When everyone turned to look at him, his only response was: "Really? Even I can see that Conan's not wearing anything remotely close to green, or had anything like that on his clothes. And, also, I'm pretty sure that we established he knows what he's doing at a crime scene. So."

"And Anderson, of course, is an idiot who doesn't bother observing," Sherlock chimed in, eyes still glinting gleefully, though he seemed to have gotten his grin under control.

Anderson looked about ready to strangle Sherlock (a feeling that was not unfamiliar to Conan), but since Conan kind of needed Sherlock alive to take up the spotlight so that he could stay in the shadows, he decided magnanimously to answer Lestrade's question. "Didn't you see the tape?"

Well, kind of answer. First, the fake posh git needed some schooling in corpse examination, apparently.

Lestrade gave Anderson A Look when he tried to pretend not to have heard. "Yes, I did. We dusted it for prints and everything."

Conan stared at him. Did he really - ugh. Nope.

(Originally, he was going to try and draw it out a little, make Anderson come to the right conclusion by nudging him in the right direction, but - nope. He was so done with that. And here, it had just occurred to him, he wasn't expected to pull anyone around by their noses. A fresh start.)

(He could pull off 'small-child-who-thinks-everyone-is-as-experienced-with-murder-as-he-is,' especially since his grasp of the English language wasn't _quite_ as good as his Japanese. He was fluent, no doubt, but at about middle school level at his best.)

Conan sighed internally. "Didn't you pull up the tape?"

"No. We can't get fingerprints off the sticky side."

Uggggghhhhhh. "But isn't that one of the first things you do when you're investigating a victim who was strangled to death?"

Oh. Wait, no. Don't tell him -

They didn't know that?

Shocked faces told him nope, they hadn't realized it yet.

Anderson stepped forward, an ugly flush rising up his neck. "I think I would have noticed that, _boy_. The duct tape isn't nearly tight enough to have strangled her, and besides - just look at the body!" He gestured grandly in the body's direction.

Conan rolled his eyes internally.

"Yes, how do you know she was strangled?" Lestrade asked far more calmly.

Now, see, Conan _could_ explain how he figured it out (because, honestly, it wasn't that hard to peel back a piece of tape) but he was supposed to, you know, distance himself from Shinichi.

And also he hadn't had enough coffee to deal with a forensic investigator who couldn't be bothered to examine a piece of tape for more than just fingerprints.

(And, honestly, he was just _so done_ with leading people around by their noses until they maybe tripped over something close to what he wanted them to notice. Especially when they got it _wrong._ That was why he liked Takagi-keiji. He'd built up a rapport with him, so much so that Takagi-keiji trusted him enough to take him at his word despite his age. He barely ever had to deal with the whole "Mouri-ojisan said to do this" or "Mouri-ojisan asked me to ask you if you found this" anymore.

And, also, Takagi-keiji was actually observant, unlike Mouri, and barely needed to be prodded to figure out what Conan wanted him to see.

But here, he didn't have anyone and he was trying to keep a low profile.

Well, as low a profile as someone who was probably cursed with people dropping dead around him every few days.)

So instead of actually explaining anything, he decided to mess with them a little.

"Because she told me," he said, pointing to the corpse. It wasn't untrue. And it sounded like something a seven year old would say. So, win-win.

"...Sorry, I don't think I caught that?" Lestrade sort-of-asked.

Conan refrained from snickering. Their _faces_.

"I said she told me." What was the name - ah, right, the cabinets. "You know, Maria?" He gave them his best wide-eyed kid look, as if he couldn't imagine anyone not understanding what he was saying.

Keeping his eyes on Conan, John leant over and asked out of the corner of his mouth, "Did you tell him her name? Because I don't think you mentioned it to me."

Lestrade shook his head numbly. "Nope."

"Anderson?"

"I didn't even know it until just now."

"Sherlock?" Lestrade asked, after a beat or two of silence, probably just remembering that Sherlock had had some amount of contact with Conan.

Sherlock snorted wordlessly.

Lestrade rolled his eyes. "Right, don't know what I was thinking. If you ever knew it, you've probably deleted it by now."

Conan realllllllly wanted to face-palm, but refrained. They really needed to look below eye-level more often.

"Huh." John rebalanced himself, unconsciously slipping into parade rest. Which - wasn't great, because that meant he was probably a little wary of Conan, and wary people scrutinize the object of their wariness.

"Also," Conan added, almost as an afterthought, turning to Anderson. "She says you're a 'fake posh git.' What does that mean?"

Anderson was stunned into silence.

It was a good look on him.


	3. Chapter 3

Conan was honestly a bit disappointed in Scotland Yard. Lestrade seemed to have arrived at the scene only approximately twenty minutes before they had, judging by the state of his shoes, so Conan refrained from judging him too harshly just yet. But Anderson…ugh.

Anderson had clearly been one of the first to be called to the scene, and thus had had nearly _two hours_ to examine the body. And he hadn't bothered to pull back the tape around the victim's neck. Conan had been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt - maybe he'd been up late last night (the bags under his eyes made it at least plausible), maybe something had happened in his personal life (marital problems were the most likely, according to his watch) - but then he'd been so _arrogant_ , as if it was impossible that he could have missed anything.

And now Conan was inclined to think him incompetent of his position.

John seemed alright, though. At least he wasn't completely dismissing Conan's ideas. Or, you know. His existence.

(He also seemed to be fairly adept at acting, should it be required. As long as he wasn't a plant from the Black Organization, Conan could see him potentially knowing about the situation sometime in the future.)

(An edited version, of course.)

(Honestly, who would actually _believe_ him if he told them the whole story? _He_ barely believed it, and it was his _life_.)

Sherlock, on the other hand, was getting a bit annoying, but there was nothing Conan could do about his constant scrutiny without arousing suspicion.

So he went back to doing what he does best.

Catching murderers, solving cases - his everyday life.

He scampered back to the body, pointedly still stepping in the footprints of the adults who'd been there previously, and crouched next to the victim.

He heard Lestrade sigh behind him as John patted him on the back in commiseration, Anderson silently fuming off to the side.

He had a feeling they'd have to get used to it.

...Wait. What was that other noise?

 _Bzzzzzzzz._

It was -

Ah.

"Hey, hey, Sherlock-niichan. What's this bug?" Conan pointed to one of the few flies that was hovering around the body.

Specific types of bugs could be used to further narrow down the time of death, Conan knew. Forensic entomology was pretty cool, but he didn't have much in the way of experience with it since most of the murders he came across happened right in front of him or had a fairly small window of time in which the murderer could have potentially acted. Sherlock, on the other hand, had at least three full-length academic articles on his website devoted to it.

Best leave this to the professional bug enthusiast.

(Not to mention the fact that it would hopefully draw attention away from him.)

Sherlock's eyes lit up. "How intriguing," he muttered before turning to call over his shoulder, "Lestrade. What does Anderson think the time of death is?"

Anderson bristled. "What do I _think -"_

Lestrade cut him off, rubbing at his temples. "We haven't narrowed it down much. I was told we had a time frame from around ten last night until six this morning."

Sherlock huffed. " _Wrong_. Honestly, Anderson. Do your job."

Conan nodded absently, eyes following the path of the fly rather than looking at Anderson.

It landed on a small object about halfway across the room, which Conan had neglected to examine thoroughly - understandable, really, since he had been more focused on _Ayumi_ the victim.

(First rule of detective work: Make sure the victim is actually dead before figuring out who murdered them.)

The basement was reasonably spacious, and its dimensions _did_ actually match those of the house, which meant that there was a 99% chance that this wasn't some sort of Kichiemon-style dungeon.

Also, like the rest of the house, it was extremely cluttered. Unlike the rest of the house, it wasn't filled with an excess of bureaus, cupboards, and wardrobes. Instead, it seemed to have been used as a dump site for a toy store or something similar.

(It matched what he imagined Dudley Dursley's second bedroom would look like, except much bigger.)

(Conan _had_ read books other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's, thank you very much.)

Used toys. Everywhere. Usually not in fantastic condition, although there were a few that hadn't even been taken out of the box.

They were fairly generic girl's toys - dolls, model horses, etc - as well as ones that were marketed towards all genders, like Legos and electronics. There was what appeared to be a half built model of Camelot in the back corner, probably about twice as tall as Conan at its zenith, with about a year's worth of dust blanketing it. The most-used - or perhaps 'least disused' would be more accurate - toy in the room was a costume chest near the door. It was overfull, fabric spilling over the edges and pooling on the floor. Conan spotted several ball gowns, some leotards, a cowgirl costume, and - were those child-sized army fatigues?

Conan did not understand beauty queens.

Pageant winners and detectives usually ran in very different circles, after all. There usually wasn't much overlap, except for unfortunate cases like this one.

And that one time when Haibara had been mistaken for a child model/actress. But that was a bit of an outlier.

(She'd tried to laugh it off afterwards - well, the Haibara version of laughing something off, which was more like hurling dry sarcasm at anyone who looked the least bit concerned until they went away, along with the situation - but she'd been spooked. She didn't like being recognizable - even in a case of mistaken identity - because it was hard enough to hide from the Black Org without also having to worry about random people on the street trying to kidnap her for looking somewhat similar to a child star.)

Conan had refrained from needling her about looking like someone famous, in a rare show of actually recognizing boundaries.

(Sometimes he kind of forgot that not everyone was so accustomed to the dark side of humanity.)

(It wasn't really his fault, though. Being exposed to a murder or a kidnapping or a suicide every other day changed a person. You either developed a sense of morbid humour, or you sank into The Pit Of Despair.)

(Conan had at first fallen prey to the latter...but he couldn't help people while he was submerged in its depths, couldn't bring murderers to justice, and he didn't really have a choice in stumbling across crime scenes on his way home from school. So he went to a KID heist to try and get a break for a few hours - because for some reason, murder cases rarely seemed to happen around KID. Conan theorized that the criminals could sense a larger predator soaring overhead on a white glider and refrained from committing crimes out of fear of either the massive presence of the police or what KID would do if he caught them. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to deter the Black Org or the people taking potshots at KID.)

(Conan was working on that. It was the least he could do for any human being, but especially for KID after he'd helped him to pull himself out of The Pit Of Despair.)

(Conan had left the heist with the ghost of a smile on his face, and Ran had nearly collapsed from relief when she saw it. He hadn't realized how much the way he'd been acting was weighing down the atmosphere around him. He'd grimaced internally and made a promise to himself, that he would try and be more wary of that in the future.)

(Ran had still made him go to a trauma psychologist afterwards, which was honestly too late to make much of a difference. The kids' parents had dragged them to therapy after the first or second case, but Ran had waited until he actually started to act differently to make an appointment - which had had to be postponed when, surprise surprise, they'd run into _another_ case on the way there. And, anyway, it wasn't as if he could say much to the psychologist. 'Oh, I'm actually ten years older than I look and there's a massive criminal organization trying to kill me, not to mention all the people with grudges against me because I put them in jail. And, you know, as if that wasn't enough, I appear to have been cursed to find and solve murders with increasing frequency. I come across one every couple days, now. Oh yeah, and you know Sleeping Kogorou? And Deduction Queen Suzuki Sonoko? Yeah, both of them are actually me.' He'd be thrown in an asylum faster than KID could steal a jewel.

And then the _incident_ had occurred...

Yeah, it had been...an experience, for both him and the psychologist.

Long story short, he had a clean bill of mental health. Even though he probably shouldn't.)

Conan shook his head, a slight twitch to try and clear it, then went back to casing the room. Other than the dust-covered toys strewn across the floor of the basement, there really wasn't much. A small hot water heater took up the far corner, along with a small shelf packed with tools and other miscellaneous bits and bobs.

He absently wondered what was in the cupboards upstairs if all of this stuff was filling up the basement.

Honestly, they could probably hide a body anywhere in the house and the police would find it MAYBE within a year - because of the smell, though, not because they actually came across it in their search.

Conan tuned back into the conversation just in time for Sherlock to finish up his rant with, "...and that is why Anderson is an incompetent buffoon. Though, really, you shouldn't need my explanation to understand that."

Lestrade sighed. "Thanks for that, Sherlock. What was that about the time of death?" He held up a hand to stave off Anderson's protests before they could start.

(His face looked redder than Conan's sneakers - which was saying something, because he'd just got a brand new pair from Agasa-hakase last week.)

(Assuming he hadn't lost any time in the intervening period between when he'd fallen asleep in Japan and when he'd woken up on Sherlock Holmes' couch.)

Sherlock sniffed. "The time of death can be further narrowed to somewhere between midnight and two in the morning if Anderson actually _knew_ anything - "

John cleared his throat quietly, but pointedly.

Sherlock rolled his eyes but with hardly a pause continued with, " - about forensic entomology."

John rolled his eyes, but nodded slightly. Apparently this was acceptable.

...Or he knew how to choose his battles.

Conan covered his desire to laugh - because this was _hysterical_ \- by covering his mouth with his fist and coughing quietly. Unfortunately, that had Sherlock's head swiveling around like an owl so he could set his laser-sights on Conan. Fun, fun. He really needed to work on his impulse control. Some self preservation skills likely wouldn't go amiss, either.

"Sorry, I breathed in some dust." This seemed to satisfy everyone except, predictably, Sherlock.

Actually, Lestrade seemed to be watching him out of the corner of his eye, too. Conan couldn't really tell if it was because he was a kid at a murder scene and Lestrade was trying to make sure that he didn't traumatize himself (been there, done that, got the bow tie) or if it was because he was actually suspicious of him.

Well. He'd find that out eventually. Probably sooner rather than later, going by his track record.

His first gut-reaction was to do the most childish thing he could think of, which was to start chasing the flies buzzing around the room. But he realized that that was actually the action of a kid younger than he was pretending to be. And, anyway, it would look strange for a kid chasing a fly to categorically avoid stepping anywhere but where an officer had already.

(The psychologist had actually been quite helpful after the incident in her office. Understandably freaked out, granted, but she had given him some useful advice.)

Also, he was in a new location. The people around him didn't know much about his personality other than what he'd shown them and what had been in the newspaper - which, honestly, hadn't been much. Laws about publicizing information about children were very helpful in his situation. According to Haibara, who had mostly managed to avoid the media, the only information about Conan available to the public was his photo, his name, a rough approximation of his age, that he was somehow connected to Mouri Kogorou, that he was smart, that he sometimes chased KID, sometimes helped solve crimes with the Detective Boys, and that he liked soccer.

So, as long as he stuck to those character-defining traits (which, honestly, wouldn't be that difficult), he could stop doing the thing where immediately after he did something atypical of a seven-year-old he did something more typical of a four- or five-year-old.

(The psychologist had told him what that signaled to an adult, and he wanted to avoid the increased scrutiny _that_ would bring down upon him as much as possible.)

Instead, he wandered over to the least dusty object in the room, the costume chest, to examine it more closely. Something was pinging what KID had once called his 'murder sense,' which was presumably a play on 'spider sense.' The Detective Boys preferred 'cluedar.'

(KID, of course, couldn't make it easy on him. He'd said the phrase in a foreign language that wasn't English, so all Conan'd had to go on was the phonetic sound of the words. He'd later figured out that it was French, after trying at least a dozen other languages. Then he'd had to figure out an approximate spelling, because French spellings were absurd and mostly about aesthetics without regard for pronunciation. 'Ton sens d'homicide volontaire picote, jeune détective' had sounds that weren't found in either of the two languages he was reasonably familiar with. And, as if that weren't enough, it was pronounced completely counterintuitively.)

(By the time Conan had figured out what KID had said, he was semi-fluent and had a love-hate relationship with the language.)

(Which wasn't unlike his relationship with KID himself.)

(He needed a whole bucketful of coffee before he was even touching that with a ten-foot pole.)

There was nothing immediately suspicious about the chest at first glance. It had likely come from a yard sale, much like the cupboards upstairs. It was gigantic and ornate - as in, Conan and the rest of the Detective Boys could probably fit in it and still have room to spare. This girl had clearly been doing pageants for a while.

The chest had been opened recently, and seemed to be used on a somewhat regular basis. Probably just for dress-up or rehearsals, though, because just about the only thing Conan knew about pageants was that wearing the same dress or costume for more than one event just _wasn't done_.

(Haibara sometimes watched them when she was alone and needed a break from science. She got _scary_ when she was invested. One time, Conan had walked into Agasa-hakase's to find a child-sized shoe lodged firmly into the shattered screen of the television. When asked about it, Haibara had taken a sip of tea and then said calmly, "They shouldn't have eliminated Tsu-chan."

Conan had backed away slowly, valuing his life.)

The dresses in the chest probably weren't the only ones in the house. In fact, Conan would put money on - if Mouri hadn't thoroughly dissuaded him from it - at least three of the larger closets upstairs being stuffed with more impractical garments, probably newer than the ones in the chest. Still, there was something about the chest that was niggling at him...

He checked the top of the chest for footprints and dust disturbances. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he carefully climbed on top of it -

Ah.

That's what it was.

There was a small window a few feet above him. Conan could probably fit through it with no trouble if he could actually reach it.

He hopped down to the floor, turning to look at the chest in consideration.

Someone a few feet taller than him wouldn't have any problem at all standing on top of it and reaching the window.

However…

They would have to have similar dimensions otherwise. So unless the culprit was thinner than Sherlock (which was highly unlikely), there wasn't any way that they had escaped out the window.

(But combined with the thread - hm.)

It was far more likely that they had just hidden in the maze of cabinets upstairs until the police went into the basement or started searching a different room or something and then slipped out the front door…

Wait.

London had CCTV cameras, didn't it?

Conan would normally assume that the police had already checked the tapes, but then he'd met Anderson. So.

"Lestrade-keibu," he assumed, given the way that Anderson deferred to him - wait, not an assumption; Sherlock had called him 'Detective Inspector.' Where was his coffee when he needed it, ugh. "Was there anything on the cameras outside?" He wasn't even going to try and pronounce 'CCTV' in English. It was death for anyone with even a slight Japanese accent; no one would understand him if he asked about the 'shi shi chi bui' cameras.

Lestrade jumped slightly at being addressed by a small child about a murder investigation (understandable), but rallied quickly. "Right, yeah, we checked it, but there wasn't anything on it. We could only see the front door, but no one other than the party guests left through it. There isn't a back door, and none of the ground floor windows open. And that window," he nodded to the one above Conan's head, "is too small for any of the party guests to get through."

Good. There was still hope for him yet.

"So the party guests were all adults?" Conan asked.

Lestrade shrugged, frowning. "There wasn't exactly a guest list, but that's what Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds said. There were only about ten people in attendance, so they probably would have noticed a kid running around."

Well.

Conan wouldn't count on that.

He cleared his throat. "Um, did you already question them? And where are Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds?"

Ugh. That name was also hard to pronounce.

Especially compared to 'Maria.'

Oh, wait, duh. Not _reinorudozu_ , but _reinorudzu_. Much easier. Why hadn't he thought of that sooner.

Coffee, wherefore art thou not in hand?

"They're all down at the station right now, along with the immediate neighbors, giving their statements. The Reynolds will be back in...hm, probably about an hour. Did you have something you wanted to ask?" Lestrade questioned, reaching subconsciously towards the pocket of his jacket - presumably where his smart phone was.

Wow, Lestrade was actually making an effort to look him straight in the eyes instead of in the nebulous space above his head like most adults did. Points for that. _And_ he was already going along with what a seven-year-old was saying, albeit a seven-year-old who clearly had some experience in his department.

Excellent.

It seemed he was tending more towards being like the FBI than like the Japanese Police Force.

(Well. Most of them, anyway. The FBI apparently didn't care what he looked like as long as he was effective and most of them took orders _really_ well, despite them coming from a six-year-old. The TMPD, on the other hand, didn't want anyone who wasn't already involved in the case on the scene. It didn't matter how effective you were; they didn't want you there until they asked for you or you had proven yourself. Which was fair, the first few times, but after the hundredth or so case that he had clearly helped solve, it got a bit tiresome because _they should be able to see by now that it was clear he knew what he was doing -_ )

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight - )

(Damn it, he didn't have _time_ for this, not with a murderer to catch.)

Conan beamed brightly in Lestrade's general direction. "I wanna meet them! They sound nice!"

Well. What he really wanted to do was see how they reacted to him, and he couldn't exactly observe their body language or micro-expressions over a phone line. Unless Lestrade was offering to video call one of his employees at the station, but that was pretty unlikely. He'd only just met Conan twenty minutes ago, and despite having a surprisingly open mind, Conan still looked about six. What kind of responsible adult would consciously allow a tiny child to chat face-to-face with a potential murder?

(The Japanese Police Department, apparently. And the FBI. Huh, maybe common sense wasn't as common as he thought.)

(That was a little depressing.)

"You're _seriously_ considering letting a _child_ meet the suspects? The _potential murderers_?" Ah, the fake posh git had finally found his voice again. And this time he seemed to be the only one with a modicum of sense. Huh. Maybe Conan had been letting some of his bitterness color his opinion of him.

Nah. Anderson was still a fake posh git. Just having _some_ sense of child endangerment laws didn't automatically mean that he wasn't generally incompetent.

(It seemed that everyone else was too used to Sherlock to notice what an oddity Conan was.)

(Which was good for him, at least. It would probably make things easier in the long run.)

(He didn't have Mouri to hide behind this time, and he would be a fool to think that Sherlock wouldn't see right through him if he tried that here.)

(He had considered using John the way he had used Mouri for a whole half second before realizing that that was potentially even _more_ stupid than trying to use Sherlock as a smoke screen. And, besides, given the fact that he ate in Sherlock's presence, he was probably immune or at least resistant to Conan's sleeping darts. And possibly most poisons.)

Lestrade blinked, visibly reconsidering what he'd been about to do. His eyes widened slightly as he realized, yes, he had just been thinking about aiding a seven-year-old in making contact with people who were suspected of possibly killing a girl only a few years older than him.

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively, drawing most of the attention of the people in the room to him. Anderson looked vaguely terrified that he'd lost track of him for a few minutes. "Resist the urge to have a conniption, if you would, Detective Inspector. They tend to be dreadfully boring, especially in situations where they serve no purpose."

"Sherlock," John said quietly.

Which was something of a mistake, as it caused Sherlock to whirl around, eyes flashing. " _What_ , John," he practically spat out. "It's not my fault that the police force is entirely comprised of _idiots_ who can't believe that someone younger than them could _possibly_ have a halfway decent idea!"

Wow, that was a big compliment coming from Sherlock Holmes.

Conan was touched.

Really.

"And, in any case," Sherlock continued, "I've already explained this. And you _know_ how much I hate repeating myself. This boy - " he gestured grandly in Conan's general direction, who flinched slightly as everyone in the room scrutinized him briefly and intensely. " - has likely seen more murders than everyone in this room combined, and spoken to far more suspects than you could possibly imagine, even collectively. In fact, he has interacted with more _murderers_ than you ever will, even if one only takes into account the cases in which his presence is recorded. Extrapolating from solely those that were publicized, and assuming that Mouri Kogorou doesn't leave him alone at home because he isn't _completely_ incompetent at taking care of a child, the boy has been implicated in the capture of over a hundred criminals in the past year, approximately eighty-seven percent of which were murders - "

Conan found it amusing that Sherlock was refusing to call him 'Sleeping Kogorou.' It could potentially be an issue later, since it seemed to imply that he didn't believe in a narcoleptic deduction savant.

(Fair, honestly. He had a feeling the police only put up with the logical inconsistencies and just went with it only because he was usually right. And, you know. Mouri used to be a police officer, so there was that bond of camaraderie.

But there was still a lot of handwave-y stuff going on, which Conan mostly pretended didn't exist because it helped his cover. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, and all that.)

(Committing identity fraud was a fun time all around, really.)

Conan blocked out Sherlock and instead scanned the room. He was still _missing something_ …

He had a feeling it was going to be something important.

He glanced around the chest one more time, this time taking the time to actually look around inside. Nothing particularly interesting, although none of the clothes in there (and, really, how many princess-y ball gowns did one pageant girl need?) seemed to match the thread he'd removed from the body.

Speaking of which…

He moved quickly back over to the corpse, doing his best to escape notice - which must have been actually pretty okay, since the other four were still focused on Sherlock.

Conan considered the area around the body. The only footprints were from the police force, or were covered up by them - they'd probably done exactly what he'd done when he'd first seen the body, checking to see if she was actually dead.

Well. They probably thought more along the lines of 'is she still alive and should we call an ambulance?', but Conan was pretty jaded. He was blaming that on the lack of coffee in his system.

(His blood should be at least half caffeine at all times.)

(Yes, he was aware that blood didn't work that way - shut up, Hattori.)

Anyway. Nothing noteworthy in the immediate vicinity of the body. He'd already been through there, so it wasn't too much of a surprise.

On the body itself, maybe?

The angle of the tape was strange, but that was to cover up the strangulation marks. Though…the marks themselves were a bit odd. He'd already noted their shape earlier - thin, likely a necklace or something similar since there was a faint pattern in the bruising that didn't look like fishing line or piano wire - as well as their angle - tilting upward, which implicated an adult. However, most, if not all, of the suspects Scotland Yard was questioning were adults, which meant that that particular observation was moot.

He _knew_ all of that, so what was pinging his murder senses?

Nothing under the body's nails, nothing caught in her hair, nothing strange about the creases in her clothing, no atypical marks around her...

What _was_ it?

He glanced up to check on the adults, who were still listening somewhat reluctantly to Sherlock's rant. John seemed resigned at this point, just sort of waiting him to run out of steam. That wasn't to say that he wasn't listening, but Sherlock did have a tendency to be a bit long-winded on subjects he was passionate about (which apparently included Conan and children at crime scenes). Lestrade was actually paying attention, eyes narrowed in thought. Either he had figured out that Sherlock was projecting a bit, or he was actually interested in what he was saying - which might be an issue, but Conan was going to wait and see which it was. Anderson's attention was somewhat surprisingly firmly fixed on Sherlock, glaring at him with the rage of a man whose ego had just been irreparably damaged. Sherlock didn't notice. Or, if he did, he didn't care enough to show it.

In any case, they were all sufficiently distracted. He was free to investigate as much as he pleased, and he was probably okay to use some of his more innovative techniques. Although…those were actually a pretty easy way to identify him, so he decided to refrain.

He surveyed the room, fists unconsciously clenching in his pockets. He was still missing _something_ , but it just wasn't coming to him the way it usually did. Though, to be fair, he was usually nearby while the crime was happening, so the crime scene was hardly disturbed when he arrived. The suspects were also usually in the same vicinity, so he could question and observe them.

It was novel, being called in for a murder that had already happened.

Conan tipped his head back to look at the ceiling, because that was just about the only place he _hadn't_ scoured for clues. Minor water damage, and some mold they should probably get checked out, but nothing else…

He sighed, glancing towards the door. Nope, still nothing...

But - in the corner, there.

 _That's_ what he was missing.

Before he realized it, he was on the other side of the room, crouched on the ground and peering down at a toy. Which normally wouldn't be particularly remarkable, given the rest of the decor, if it weren't for the wear pattern.

Conan picked up the small toy knight from the floor, covering his hand with his handkerchief. It wasn't completely out of place, what with the half-finished castle close by, but _this_ was what had been bothering him.

The knight was small and worn, but well-cared for. It was like… If the rest of the toys in the room belonged to Genta, this one belonged to Mitsuhiko. Genta was somewhat careless with his possessions, but he did at least try to care of them when he remembered. Mitsuhiko was the opposite; he tended to take care of his possessions as well as he could, but despite his meticulous nature would occasionally be careless. There wasn't a _whole_ lot of difference between the states of their toys, but Conan had been around them long enough (and been forced into enough games with Kamen Yaiba action figures) to have catalogued the contrast out of sheer boredom.

Well. This was interesting.

He placed the knight carefully in an evidence bag and set it by Anderson's kit. Hopefully he'd notice it and put it with the rest of them, although Conan wouldn't count on it… There was a better chance of it getting catalogued if Anderson thought it had been forgotten by one of the officers or something, rather than Conan.

He turned back towards the adults, making sure that their attention was still sucked into the black hole that was Sherlock Holmes. Yup.

He checked his watch, looking at the time. Hm. Another twenty minutes until Lestrade had said the Reynolds would be back. A sudden shift in the room's mood made him glance back up suddenly.

...Why were they all staring at him like that? (Well, minus Sherlock, of course. He was still apparently...either making a case for young children to be able to speak with murder suspects or reciting Conan's appearances in the news. It was a little hard to tell.)

They must have interpreted his thousand yard stare as confusion somehow, because Lestrade repeated what had presumably provoked their scrutiny. "He just said you chased a thief on a blimp that was later hijacked by bio-terrorists. He's exaggerating, right?"

There was dead silence for a beat, even Sherlock pausing to hear his response.

"That was so _weird._ Who _fakes_ bio-terrorism?" Conan scoffed, forgetting himself for a minute.

Lestrade looked like someone had cracked an egg over his head. "Sorry, they faked _bio-terrorism_?"

Conan shrugged. "Yeah. They used the blimp to evacuate Nara and then they tried to steal some Buddhas from the temples while no one was there to stop them. KID, Hattori, and I figured it out while occhan was stuck on the airship."

"Kid? There was another kid on board?" John asked, evidently worried. Conan wondered why. It wasn't as if they had _known_ the ship was going to be hijacked. For all they had known, it would have been a perfectly safe heist.

Lestrade and Sherlock looked at him, both eager to know the answer but clearly for different reasons. Sherlock's expression was full of barely restrained curiosity, while Lestrade crossed his arms and tilted forward slightly, brow creased. Anderson watched with a morbid interest.

Conan made a complicated face. "Those are two different questions. Yes, there were three other kids my age on board, but I was talking about KID, the thief. You know, Kaitou - sorry, Phantom Thief - 1412? That's what Interpol calls him."

...Evidently that was not the answer they were looking for.

"Interpol?!" Anderson - well, 'yelped' was really the only word for it.

John closed his eyes, tipping his head back towards the ceiling.

Lestrade just blinked tiredly. "An internationally wanted thief helped you stop a bio-terrorism attack. And you trusted him enough to work with him."

It barely sounded like a question, but Conan shrugged anyway. " _Fake_ bio-terrorism, but yeah. He's non-violent - as in, he will _actively_ try to make sure that people don't get hurt at his heists, except for that one time with the Van Gogh paintings and the bombs, but that wasn't actually him - and he always returns everything he steals. Besides, he'd just saved me from falling to my death after the fake bio-terrorists threw me out of the blimp, so."

There was stunned silence from everyone in the room.

Hm.

Apparently that hadn't been in whatever article Sherlock had read about the case.


	4. Chapter 4

Heads up: brief discussion of sexual abuse/rape, in that Conan explains that it did not happen to the victim.  
If that's something you need to skip, it's about two thirds of the way down, the two paragraphs between "Shouldn't it be obvious?" and "He was feeling spiteful today."

...

After being questioned about the fake bio-terrorists for a _long_ while (honestly, what was making them sound so incredulous? Once you got past the _blimp_ and _faking bio-terrorism_ part, it was mostly a normal KID heist. Kind of. ...Okay, maybe they had a point.), Conan more or less gave up on explaining himself.

 _Apparently_ , his life was weird even by police standards.

Hell, even _Sherlock's_ standards, judging by the slight widening of his eyes and the way they darted over to John briefly.

Somehow, they'd moved on from the fake bio-terrorists to some of his more...interesting cases. He'd thought they weren't quite as strange as some of Sherlock's, but evidently he had been wrong, so after glossing over some of the more dangerous parts of the Sunset Mansion case - basically, what he would have ended up telling Ran if she hadn't actually been there - he managed to steer the conversation back to KID.

Hopefully it would be - less suspicious, maybe, for a seven-year-old to be interested in a flashy showman rather than murder, even though the latter wasn't exactly by choice. It was easier to downplay his contributions, too. Or, rather, it was easier to _remember_ to downplay his murder IQ.

Mostly because there was usually a distinct lack of murder at KID heists.

It was a nice change of pace.

But, well. On the bright side, no corpses had fallen out of the sky yet. That was definitely a plus.

On the less bright side, the police ended up borderline interrogating him for nearly an hour, Sherlock watching the proceedings intensely from the sidelines.

("So you're saying that he made a plane explode - "

"No, he stopped a Van Gogh painting from being incinerated while the pilot landed safely."

"Wait, I thought _he_ was flying the plane - "

"No, no, that was the time the pilot got poisoned and he flew off on his hang glider while the plane was crashing to use the police cars to light up the bridge we were using as a makeshift landing strip."

"Then who was flying the plane if the pilot had been poisoned?"

"I, um, _helped_ the copilot find a place to land."

"Where did _you_ learn how to land a _plane_?"

Instinctively, "Hawaii."

" _What?!"_ Wait, shit.

"In Microsoft Flight Simulator." More plausible. "And I was only helping the copilot land." Lie, but whatever.

"...I have so many questions.")

Honestly, he was having too much fun messing with them. He could kind of see why KID enjoyed trolling the police force so much. It was an entertaining distraction, keeping him from dwelling on the fact that he still had _no idea how he'd ended up 9553 kilometres from where he'd fallen asleep._

Seriously, that was _not normal_.

(But then again, what in his life was at this point?)

Conan shook his head slightly, returning his focus to Lestrade (and the case that required his immediate attention). "Hey, hey, Lestrade-keibu, can I go see the neighbors?"

Lestrade blinked, vaguely startled at being addressed. "...I - I suppose. They'll probably be back from the station by now, assuming they weren't questioned in their homes. Why?"

"I'm hungry and I want to meet them. Maybe they'll have juice."

Or coffee. Ugh, he could use some coffee right now. Juice was less suspicious for a seven-year-old, though, so. That was what he went with.

He was definitely _nailing_ this "I'm-only-seven" thing.

(Take that, Haibara.)

Lestrade gave him a weird look, but sighed and went with it. It seemed that he was about as done with the conversation as Conan was, though likely for different reasons.

(Conan didn't want to give too much away and it seemed he had no decent baseline for the "normal" amount of heists or murder cases a person usually would run into, much less what a "normal" murder case looked like. It was possible that Japanese murders were just generally more convoluted than English ones, as a rule.)

(Lestrade, on the other hand, just wanted his brain to stop breaking. He kept imagining his kids in Conan's place, and just - no. Poor kid. He'd be terrified if _any_ of the things that Conan had been involved in had happened to them, and the nonchalant way Conan spoke about _chasing an internationally wanted criminal_ seemed to imply that he thought it was _normal,_ or at least better than the alternative.

And, no, he hadn't missed that Conan was doing his best to avoid mentioning how many murder cases he'd been involved in.

...Lestrade was understandably a rather…strange mixture of suspicious, cautious, and worried, but he was going to do his best to prevent that from coming across to the kid until he could figure him out.)

Lestrade shrugged again, then began walking up the stairs. Conan darted after him, hardly believing his luck. Especially when Anderson and John went back to examining the body while Sherlock seemed to be frozen, staring off into space while his brain worked in overtime - he was probably in his mind palace. "Yeah, all right. But I'm going to be right there behind you the entire time, and there are going to be some rules - "

Lestrade interrupted himself, pausing abruptly as he almost ran into someone in the hallway and had to stop suddenly. He automatically reached a hand behind him to prevent Conan from running into him, just catching his shoulder.

Conan flinched slightly, taking a step backwards to avoid the hand coming at him. He ignored the way that Lestrade's brow furrowed slightly when he caught the movement, instead peering past him and up at the person who they'd nearly run over.

Or, rather, people, since there were two of them - a man and a woman.

The man looked vaguely Asian - likely Japanese, actually, though his light brown hair said at least two generations removed if Conan wasn't mistaken - and was fairly unremarkable otherwise. He had wire-rimmed glasses that had far thicker lenses than Conan's and looked like bifocals. They were definitely necessary to get through everyday life. Around his eyes, there were faint laughter lines. He seemed to be in his late thirties or early forties - it was a little hard to tell, since he had one of those faces that didn't seem to age at all. When he spoke, it was with a purely British accent (Conan wasn't fantastic at distinguishing between them yet, but he was pretty sure it was somewhere in Yorkshire): "Hello, Mister…?"

Lestrade shook his briefly, blinking, before turning to him and offering a hand. "Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade, Mr. Reynolds. I'm in charge of your daughter's case. My condolences for your loss, but we're doing absolutely everything we can to bring her killer to justice."

The woman sniffed a little, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. She, on the other hand, was anything _but_ unremarkable. Every part of her appearance seemed to be chosen carefully to catch eyes and give the impression of wealth. The result was a woman with bleached blonde hair that was probably supposed to look natural but didn't quite find the mark ( _\- slightly darker roots, highlights in unnatural places and where the light wasn't hitting, a tinge of orange and stiffness around the ends, and he'd been forced into enough 'Girl's Nights' with Sonoko and Ran that he shuddered internally at the state of this woman's hair -_ ), well-done makeup that was color coordinated with her outfit but was clearly caked on rather heavily ( _\- 'caked' was an understatement, smell of baby powder and overpowering flowery something or other Haibara would be able to identify in moments -_ ), and clothing that displayed brand names Conan was pretty sure were the "fancy" brands Haibara ogled in store windows and magazines when she had the chance - except that if he looked closely enough, it was easy enough to tell that she'd bought them either secondhand or heavily discounted ( - _stains that had been rigorously washed until they were faded enough not to be immediately noticeable, slightly scuffed heels - obviously well-cared for but worn regardless, almost threadbare in some places -_ ), as well as vaguely reminding Conan of the fake posh git somehow.

She clearly cared about appearing wealthier and younger than she actually was (early to mid-thirties at a guess, since the amount of makeup she was wearing actually aged her instead of making her look more youthful), though her husband didn't seem to share the same obsession. She wasn't particularly successful, at least to Conan's eyes. But who knew what people who didn't have to actively analyze murderer's - or victim's - clothes for potential clues thought.

Mrs. Reynolds looked like the kind of woman who would _demand_ to speak to a manager if a sales worker said her coupon was expired.

She would get the discount eventually, too, no matter whether it was actually out-of-date or not.

(If Sonoko and Ran managed to have a kid together, it would be Mrs. Reynolds.)

(Conan shuddered internally. He was _not_ looking forward to interacting with her.)

There was a bit of an awkward silence while Mr. Reynolds nodded distantly, staring off into space and Mrs. Reynolds dabbed at her eyes, somehow managing to avoid smudging her makeup.

Conan sighed internally and broke the silence deliberately, drawing their attention to himself with the cutest sneeze he could muster. Ugh. He sounded like Ayanokouji-keibu's chipmunk.

It _did_ work, though, so he guess he couldn't complain _too_ much.

"Oh, who's this? Is he your son, Inspector?" Mrs. Reynolds asked. This accent, Conan was more familiar with - it sounded like she was going for an upper-class Surrey, but even he could tell that she was falling a tad short. She ended up with a strange mix of Surrey and - was that Welsh, maybe?

Lestrade, to his credit, only blinked before answering. "Ah, no, not quite. This is Conan, one of our consultant's…" He trailed off, intentionally implying that Conan's parents were indeed present.

"He's not been down to the basement, has he?" Mr. Reynolds asked sharply, breaking out of his absent stare at the walls to fix his stare on Lestrade.

"No, no, of course not!" Ha, so Lestrade was halfway decent at acting. That was a little surprising, for an otherwise fairly straightforward man. "That would be completely irresponsible of us! The consultants couldn't find a 'sitter, so - since we _did_ call them in a bit unexpectedly - we have plenty of officers around - "

Conan jumped in with, "I still wanna see the basement!" to give Lestrade's story a little more credibility since he seemed to be struggling a little. "Mr. Watson and Sherlock are down there, right? So why can't I?" He added a little bit of a whine at the end and forced his face into a pout.

Oh, ugh. 'Mr. Watson' and 'Sherlock' sounded so wrong after having read the books dozens of times. Well, English was confusing enough regardless of the way they had you addressing adults. For some reason, though, addressing people had never really clicked for him. Especially not for people whose names were almost common in his Japanese vocabulary.

(...Maybe, when he had been younger the first time around, he had fant - _thought about_ being sucked into the books and becoming Holmes' apprentice, but that was neither here nor there.)

"No!" Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds snapped instantly, Mrs. Reynolds' voice breaking slightly as she lifted her tissue to her eyes again. "That - it's no place for a child," Mr. Reynolds added, making eye contact with Conan and softening his voice before wrapping an arm around his wife's shoulders and pulling her close.

" _Why noooooottttttttt?_ "Conan whined, emulating a young Sonoko-ojousama when she didn't get her way.

Come on, fall for it… Lestrade, don't ruin the set up… (Lestrade was silent, but watched him with a quizzical expression.)

Mr. Reynolds took a deep breath, quite obviously steeling himself. "I'm afraid we found our Maria there this morning."

Conan brightened. "Maria? Is she my age? Can I play with her?"

Lestrade was looking at him incredulously, which was kind of understandable since Conan _had_ , in fact, seen the crime scene and therefore _knew_ that Maria was deceased.

Conan barely refrained from rolling his eyes in response. It was like Lestrade hadn't even _heard_ of subterfuge before.

Mr. Reynolds blinked, squeezing his wife closer to him as she started openly crying, wiping her eyes without regard for her makeup. "N-no, boy, she's - no, she was - that is, she's - " He swallowed with considerable effort. "She passed away this morning, son."

It was weird, being called 'son.' He hadn't really thought it would ever happen to him, but here he was. "Oh. So I guess she can't come and play."

Mr. Reynolds shook his head, managing a small, trembling smile for Conan.

Conan ignored the clear cues that Mr. Reynolds would rather comfort his sobbing wife than talk to a child about the same age as his recently deceased daughter. " - though I guess she probably wouldn't like playing the games I like to play if she's, um, what's it called? A, um, a...pretty girl contest participating person? I'm pretty sure that's what it translates to, but that doesn't sound right. Um…"

Mr. Reynolds and Lestrade both blinked. Lestrade leaned forward slightly, eyebrows raised. "...Do you mean a pageant girl? A young girl who wins beauty contests?"

Conan nodded. "Yes, that. Sorry, I've been in Japan since I started school. My English is a little rusty." Implying that he was born elsewhere - America, given his accent - and also excusing some of the slip-ups he would definitely be making in the future. His grammar was generally pretty solid, but his vocabulary was...less so. He hadn't felt the need to know the English word for 'beauty pageant,' and yet, here he was needing to know it. So. Best to have a safety net.

"No, it's no problem, son." There it was again, that word. It felt _really_ weird to be referred to as someone's son when it was clear he wasn't related to them. He guessed it was kind of equivalent to calling someone you'd hardly met 'onee-san' or 'onii-san,' so he maybe it wasn't _that_ weird. Cultural differences, he supposed. "Yes, our Maria does like participating in pageants. She's even won a few; her trophies should be on a shelf somewhere in her room. She likes - " Mr. Reynolds choked slightly, blinking rapidly. " - liked, she liked looking at them before she fell asleep every night…"

"That sounds fun!" Conan said brightly, completely ignoring the general ambiance in the hallway. "I don't think we really have those for kids in Japan. Sonoko-oneesan probably would like that though… Who else usually competes?"

Mr. Reynolds looked near the end of his rope, but kept his chin up and carried on. "Ah, well, the Peters' daughter usually comes in second, and the other contestants are normally the children of the guests from the party last night - it was supposed to be a celebration." His voice broke slightly on the last word, so he cleared his throat with some difficulty before saying, "Sorry, Inspector, could Jane and I be excused… We need to make some calls…"

Lestrade glanced at Conan, who had apparently suddenly gained the ability to read the atmosphere in the last ten seconds and now looked contrite. "Yes, of course, my apologies. You will, of course, need to keep out of the basement and your daughter's room until the investigation - "

"Yes, of course. Excuse us." Lestrade nodded and Conan waved as the Reynolds moved up the stairs, acknowledging the officer placed there, then presumably going to their bedroom.

Soon after they had left eyesight, Lestrade absently began moving towards the front door, thoughts clearly on something else. Conan followed behind him quietly, trying not to break his train of thought.

Just inside the doorway, in what Conan was pretty sure was called the mudroom in England but was where he was used to the _genkan_ being, Lestrade stopped abruptly, training his eyes on Conan. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That she was a pageant girl."

Conan had thought it was pretty obvious, taking into account the teeth, the skin, the meticulous nails, and the sheer number of barely-worn costumes. So he gave the most annoying, seven-year-old-ish answer he could: "Because."

Lestrade stared at him for a moment then shook his head, staring off into the distance. "How on earth… Who _are_ you?" he asked the ceiling contemplatively.

(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight - )

Conan was _so_ done.

He looked Lestrade straight in the eyes (well, as much as he could from his height), and said as sarcastically as he could while still keeping a straight face, " _Edogawa Conan, reinousha sa."_

Actually...that was an almost perfect disguise, really, especially added to losing approximately ten years. No one would believe that Kudou Shinichi would allow _anyone_ to call him anything remotely approaching something from the realm of the supernatural, much less _psychic_.

Lestrade's face went blank, then his brow furrowed quizzically. "Sorry, Conan, I don't… I took Latin in school, not Japanese."

Whoops. Apparently he'd forgotten what language he was supposed to be speaking.

That was actually a good thing, though, since apparently his sarcasm hadn't come across - or, well, Lestrade hadn't been able to detect it.

Well, he was committed now…

Wait.

Did he know the word for 'psychic?' Because he hadn't exactly made a habit of looking up supernatural English words.

(Possibly he had avoided them out of spite.)

Well, whatever.

"Well, in Beika, Takagi-keiji said that I was probably possessed by a _shinigami_ , or that one was following me around… And Yamamura-keibu said something about me being, um. _Eigo de, ano..._ It's like 'magic' but related to thoughts? And sort of the heart and mind."

Shit, he actually didn't know the right word. What was _reinousha_ in English? _Saikikku_ was written in katakana, so it was definitely foreign...Maybe that would help? "Um, in Japanese it's _reinousha_ or _saikikku_? It's like...uh..."

Wait, what was that one line from that movie - " _I see dead people_."

You know what. Close enough.

Hardly even a lie, really.

Oh, and just for a little fun: "I told you before. It's not my fault that you didn't believe me."

Ha, he could _see_ Lestrade flashing back to earlier that day. It was written all over his face.

Clearly he was regretting not actually asking _Conan_ how he'd known Maria's name. You know, the one person who would actually know the answer, as opposed to the adults who had just met him.

...After about five minutes, though, Conan had grown bored of watching Lestrade stare at him, mouth flapping wordlessly.

This was why he didn't usually do pranks.

People broke afterwards.

(Maybe KID could handle them, though. Hm. That was an idea.)

In any case, it was clear that Conan would be standing in the front room for ages unless he did something to move the investigation along. Luckily, he had just the thing.

"Lestrade-keibu, you said I could go visit the neighbors. Remember, you said I could ask for some juice?" Well, coffee, but Lestrade didn't need to know that.

(Hattori would say that Shinichi had an unhealthy dependency on coffee, but Hattori was a hypocrite.)

(Besides, neither of them drank anything _close_ to what Haibara did.)

(Combined, they were only _kind of_ close to the ballpark she was in.)

Lestrade looked like his entire worldview was being rearranged, but nodded distantly and opened the door before leading him outside.

The house on the left had two newspapers on the doorstep and the lights were on in the front two rooms, curtains drawn, despite the fact that the time was now approaching noon. They were gone away for the weekend, then. Possibly longer, but unlikely given that it was March and there were toy dump trucks and soldiers lined up on the windowsills. Kids needed to go to school, after all.

(...)

(...Well.)

(...Normal ones did, in any case.)

So, no one home for at least two days meant no witnesses and little to no opportunity - just to be sure, though - "Lestrade-keibu, where'd those people go?"

Lestrade glanced over to the house he was pointing at, then replied with, "Somewhere in Cornwall, I think, about five hours away from here. They've been there since Friday night. We've checked, and they do have an alibi - theater, I think, then some sort of dinner party at a fancy restaurant."

Conan nodded absently, thoughts confirmed.

Their vacation had evidently allowed for an empty parking spot on the street, into which a patrol car had just pulled up. A tall man with black hair and the beginnings of a salt-and-pepper look in his early- to mid-forties stepped out, ducking slightly to keep himself from hitting his head on the door. He straightened, waved at the patrol car, then headed towards the house to the right of the Reynolds'.

Conan took one solid look at him, shuddered, and said, "Arrest him."

Lestrade looked down at him out of the corner of his eye, apparently having had learnt that Conan usually had good reason to make what appeared to be rash assumptions to anyone outside his head. "Bradley Greene? On what charges? He was just in for questioning - apparently he was out with friends on the other side of town last night and all three of them vouched for him." He kept his voice low, which meant that he was automatically giving weight to Conan's opinion (wow, that was fast - maybe he should pretend to be psychic more often), and, in deference to it, was doing his best not to alert the neighbor to their conversation. "Sergeant Donovan just sent me an overview," he added, explaining himself unnecessarily, in Conan's opinion. But that was a new name, so, maybe not entirely redundant.

"At least one count of stalking, multiple counts of possession of child pornography - likely more than a dozen, I think - and statistically three or more counts of child molestation," Conan replied bluntly.

Lestrade blinked at him, evidently lost for words but attempting to keep his face mostly neutral. "I see."

Conan rolled his eyes. He wanted to say something like 'you don't, actually,' but refrained because his coffee was finally kicking in and he now had some semblance of a brain-to-mouth filter now.

Lestrade crouched down so that he was on Conan's level (which he did _not_ appreciate, but reluctantly understood his reasoning when Lestrade whispered inches away, almost directly into his ear). "How can you tell?" he asked softly.

Conan shrugged slightly. "I've had a lot of practice." Sleeve of a porn addict, indeed. Noting the look creeping onto Lestrade's face despite his attempt to stay neutral, he added, "I kinda run into a lot of crimes." Oddly, that didn't do much to make him relax. Abruptly, Conan switched back to the more important topic. "Try and get invited in for questioning or something and take a look around his flat. He's probably got a pair of binoculars and a box of tissues at the back window, and keeps his ecchi magazines out on the coffee table or otherwise in plain sight. He might try to hide them, but they'll be hidden badly. I doubt you'd even need a search warrant."

Lestrade looked at him askance, but made to stand up.

Conan added absently, "He isn't the guy who killed Maria Reynolds, though."

Lestrade paused, halfway out of his crouch (trying not to get his suit dirty - interesting). "And how would you know that?"

Conan rolled his eyes internally. Shouldn't it be obvious? At least, to a person who'd achieved the rank of Detective Inspector?

Her corpse had been covered in bruises, especially facially, which wasn't something someone obsessed with her appearance would do. Also, more pertinently, her clothes had been intact and there had been nothing - that he could see or smell, in any case, or that had been in the preliminary report Anderson had written and Conan had sneaked a glimpse of - that would indicate that she had been taken advantage of sexually.

Which a pedophile who had stalked Maria Reynolds, even moving across London to get closer to her (he could see boxes through the window, an entire bookcase full of pageant tapes, unopened forwarded mail on a table nearby), would have done before killing her.

You know what. He was feeling spiteful today. They could figure it out all on their own.

"Because she told me so," he replied, rather impatiently.

Lestrade didn't exactly look convinced, but he didn't _not_ look convinced, so Conan grabbed his sleeve and tugged at it, moving in the neighbor's direction. "Come on, I - "

"Nope." Lestrade, suddenly remembering that he was supposed to be a responsible adult, stated flatly before guiding Conan towards the woman who'd just stepped out of the patrol car driver's seat - an officer, not quite as high in rank as Lestrade. "Sergeant Donovan, would you mind watching him for a few minutes while I...take care of something quickly?"

Conan huffed, playing up the bratty part of his persona. "I already _told_ you that he's a pedophile. You don't need to censor yourself."

This earned him a wide-eyed stare from the woman - Donovan, apparently.

She was a woman with dark skin and a proud air - which was fair, honestly, since she looked rather young for a sergeant. Late twenties to early thirties was his guess. The way she stood said confident, while her muscle distribution suggested that she was well-versed in self-defense and likely hand-to-hand combat. Calluses on her hands said she was at ease with a gun - at least proficient, likely much better. Professional attire, almost pristine in presentation though it had seen better days, minimal makeup - she cared about her appearance, even after having been called in early in the morning. She probably had to, if she wanted to be promoted.

She kind of reminded him of Satou-keiji. Frighteningly competent, take-no-shit attitude, probably had to fight sexism to climb the ranks. Conan thought that they'd probably get along quite well if they ever met.

And - oh, that was interesting. No ring, scuffed knees, the same scent enshrouding Anderson (generic cedar and sandalwood with just a touch of mint, of all things, to make it 'unique' - uniquely unpleasant, in Conan's opinion) faintly present around the hem of her skirt and at her wrists (likely behind her ears, too, but Conan wasn't actually tall enough to tell.)

But she _did_ have a bracelet - inconspicuous, silver, engraved on the inside, hidden by her sleeve unless you were looking up it - ah, now _that_ was interesting.

Conan's eyebrows shot up. "Oh. Wow."

Donovan frowned. "What."

"Sorry, it's just - I've never seen that before…"

Donovan's scowl deepened. "What, a female police officer?"

"No, no, a relationship with more than two people - I don't know what you call it in English - "

From Lestrade, "Polyamorous?"

" - sure, that sound right. I haven't seen a polyamorous relationship that hasn't ended in murder. Not that I didn't know that they existed! But I usually get the bad end of the stick and Occhan has to figure out who the murderer is and it's usually one of the people in the relationship." He was pretty proud of himself for remembering that one. Idioms were hard. Wait, was it 'bad end' or 'short end'? Or something else entirely? Ugh.

Donovan slowly turned to Lestrade, eyebrow cocked. "Where did you find this one, then? Not even the freak got that bit right."

Conan stood corrected. Satou-keiji probably wouldn't like Donovan if she spoke like that.

Lestrade sighed. "Apparently, he, quote-unquote, 'just turned up on Sherlock's couch this morning and they have no idea how he got there.' He says he's psychic. And I need to go check on Mr. Greene and possibly arrest him - "

" _Definitely_ arrest him," Conan broke in. "Remember? One, maybe two counts of stalking, more than a dozen counts of possession of child pornography, and approximately three counts of child molestation. Although the criteria may be different in England, I guess. I even told you where you can find the proof, too."

Donovan's eyebrow crept higher on her face, rising with Conan's every word until it matched the other one, her gaze still boring into Lestrade.

Lestrade shrugged in response. "His story has some merit to it. He knew the girl's name before any of us knew it, much less _told_ him, and that she was a pageant girl. And that she was strangled to death, despite the fact that Anderson and everyone else who looked at the body - except Sherlock, I suppose - thought it was clear that she'd been beaten to death. And about your relationship with Anderson and his wife, something that not even Sherlock was able to figure out. In this case, since he was so specific about the charges and the evidence, I guess I may as well look into it."

Conan rolled his eyes but accepted that. It probably wouldn't say anything good about the police force if he could have an Inspector's complete trust within - had it really only been a bit more than two hours?

Donovan nodded slightly, acquiescing to looking after Conan (not that he really needed looking after but she didn't know that yet) and Lestrade left them alone to amble towards Mr. Greene's house, determinedly casual.

Donovan watched him go until he had knocked on the door, then dropped her gaze to Conan. He flinched, unprepared for such a calculating stare, before squaring his shoulders and focusing on breathing normally (in for four, hold for seven, out for eight...in for four, hold for seven, out for eight - ). The silence was eventually broken with one question: "Well? Aren't you going to deduct me, or read me or whatever it is you're calling it?"

Conan blinked. "Not unless you want me to. Isn't it rude?" To do it out loud, at least. And also it gave away what you were thinking and the potential evidence, which was bad when you were trying to figure out how to corner a murderer into confessing.

Donovan huffed out a laugh, then somehow managed to ruffle his hair despite his attempts to duck out of reach. "I think we'll get along just fine, kid."

Conan shrugged and went with it, since it seemed that that was all she had to say since she was now curiously watching the house Lestrade had disappeared into.

His attention was drawn away by Shinichi's phone buzzing insistently in his pocket. Conan took it out and typed in his pass code - apparently, he had four voicemails, all from Hattori, and one text message from an unknown number.

He opened the text first and had just enough time to read _You're going on vacation -_ before his phone made a desolate beeping noise and the screen turned blacker than the way Conan liked his coffee.

God _damn it_.

 _(Shinichi's Phone)_

 _4 New Voicemails_

 _The Worse Detective of the West (7:38 PM)_

" _Kudou, Kudou, um, Kazuha jus' kissed me. An' I don't know wha' ta do. What's goin' on - I thought she didn't actu'lly like me like tha'. Like, I know I was goin' ta confess ta her at some point, but I was goin' ta hedge ma bets by doin' it in the mos' romantic place I could think of - betta than London, obviously - ta increase the possibility tha' she migh' try it out but she jus'...kissed me? She jus' kissed me. Kudou, I'm freakin' out. Why aren'cha answerin' yer phone. Help me. Seriously, I think I'm hyperventilatin' - "_

 _The Worse Detective of the West (9:00 PM)_

" _Okay, so I called ya an hour ago on your other phone and ya haven't responded yet so either yer in the middle ova case or you've been kidnapped again. Or yer ignorin' me. Why wouldja ignore me in ma time of need, Kudou. Some friend YOU are. Cases don't normally take ya this long unless there are serial killin's, which'd be on the news AND THERE ARE NO SERIAL KILLIN'S IN THE NEWS, KUDOU, ANSWER ME."_

 _The Worse Detective of the West (10:59 PM)_

" _Seriously, did Kaitou KID kidnap ya or somethin' 'cause ya NEVER go this long without at least LOOKIN' at yer phone. Tha' guy really is the embodiment of 'he protec but he also attac.' Jus'. Lemme know yer only chasin' murderers and not BEIN' murdered, okay?_

 _The Worse Detective of the West (11:43 PM)_

" _Kudou. Answer yer damn phone. I'm startin' to get worried."_

…

 _End of final message._

 _(Conan's Phone)_

 _3 New Voicemails_

 _Heiji-niichan (8:03 PM)_

" _Hey, Ku-onan, didja get ma other message? Somethin' happened, so call me."_

 _Ran-neechan (7:15 AM)_

" _Conan-kun, remember that Dad and I are going to be away this weekend with Mom since I won that resort vacation in that raffle. I know you mentioned something about Agasa-hakase and camping, but I just wanted to remind you that we won't be back until Monday night since it's a holiday. Be good for the hakase, okay? And have fun!"_

 _Unknown Number (10:03 AM)_

" _Meitantei, cela fait longtemps que nous n'avons pas parlé. Ça baigne? Je suis un peu étonné que ton numéro de téléphone soit le même que pour celui du train du mystère. Heureusement que je ne l'ai jamais utiliser pour un canular téléphonique... Tous va bien, Meitantei? En ton honneur, je vais changer d'endroit… C'était un peu soudain, n'est-ce pas? Savais-tu que tu partirais? C'est très impoli! Mon prochain cambriolage va être à Londres. Les détails devraient être dans le journal du coin. À bientôt!"_

…

 _End of final message.  
_

 _...  
_

Translation:  
"Meitantei, it's been a while since we last talked. How are you? I'm a bit surprised that your phone number is the same as the one from the Mystery Train. Luckily, I never used it for prank calls... Is everything okay, Meitantei? In your honor, I'm changing the location... It's a bit sudden, isn't it? Did you know you'd be leaving? That's very impolite of you! My next heist will be in London. The details should be in the local newspaper. Until then!"

Sorry for the delay, but college happened.

Also, if you're interested, I have another DC/MK fic on here: /works/16116212/chapters/37648184

Et si vous voyez une erreur, spécialement avec mon français, n'hésitez pas à me contacter!  
(And if you see an error, especially with my French, don't hesitate to contact me!)

Also, Heiji's accent is...really hard to write, so I'm open to any suggestions.


	5. Chapter 5

Kaito had already been having a bad day, what with having to go to school after an all-night planning session in addition to Tantei-kun's somewhat alarming behavior at the last heist, and then his phone had blipped.

He tensed, the teacher's voice fading away as the sound of blood rushing through his ears grew loud enough to drown her out.

His phone making _any_ sound was slightly worrying, given that he had it on silent for anything other than emergencies while he was in class, but that sound in particular - five short notes (C#3, C#4, C4, B3, C4 - he didn't have _perfect_ pitch, but he'd memorized that sequence), then a longer F sharp above middle C…

It sounded terrible, but so did most musical codes.

The F# was the sound for his tracker notifications - he was in the process of testing a new version, designed by him and Jii-chan, that would hopefully last longer and be more accurate than the commercial ones he was currently using for heists. They'd come up with the idea and the blueprints, and then Jii-chan had spirited them away to his friend, who apparently was better than him at actually building things. He'd muttered something under his breath that had sounded suspiciously like _'well, as long as they don't explode'_ as he was leaving, but Kaito had elected to ignore that. After all, what was a good experiment without an explosion or two?

(Regardless of the fact that there wasn't any conceivable way for any of the components of the tracker to become anything close to remotely explosive, combined or otherwise. Jii-chan had sounded pretty resigned, though, so…

Maybe that guy was as much a prodigy at making things explode as Tantei-kun was at finding corpses.

Wow, wasn't that a morbid thought.)

The shorter notes were specifiers, denoting which of his test subjects the notification was about. Currently, he had six…'formal' participants - three had the old trackers, and three had the new prototypes. Four of his subjects were doves (his own, obviously, who were trained to fly in specific patterns once every few hours, among other things). The other two, on the other hand, were humans - Nakamori-keibu and Hakuba. They had fairly consistent schedules, but would occasionally be interrupted by some crime or another that would send them to a different part of town.

His seventh, unofficial participant was Tantei-kun, because during his last heist he'd been...strange. He'd gone through the motions, sure, chasing after KID, avoiding traps, figuring out his disguise, but he'd seemed - resigned. Distant. Depressed, almost.

(Kaito might have improvised _slightly_ a couple of times that night, in order to spark the glint that was usually present in Tantei-kun's eyes, but aside from a flash of it every once in a while, it refused to light.

He was _concerned_ , okay? It wasn't like Tantei-kun _at all_ to be completely uninspired by the thrill of the chase.)

Kaito had had the first prototype for the new tracker with him at the time, just in case he could get close enough to Snake to safely attach it to his hat or something, but there had been no sign of any guns that night, other than his (which only shot cards, anyway, and wasn't really enough to be lethal unless he actively _aimed_ to kill, and that was just - _no._ ). It was fortuitous, and honestly a bit of a relief, because that meant that he'd had plenty of time to confront Tantei-kun about his...mood, while the Task Force had been trapped downstairs in a massive glitter-super-glue concoction of his own recipe that would require a mixture of shampoo, vinegar, and egg whites to dissolve completely. They would likely be there for a while before someone found the note he'd left in place of the gem explaining how to remove themselves.

He wasn't cruel enough to make them figure it out on their own, no matter what Hakuba said otherwise _._ Besides, it wasn't as if he couldn't change the composition for the next heist enough to make that particular counter-recipe completely useless.

(Tantei-kun was more important.)

So, once he'd made it to the roof, he had scanned the surrounding buildings for snipers (because this was his life now, apparently). Finding nothing - because, lucky him, Jirokichi had decided on a building that was simultaneously the tallest building in the area _and_ separated enough from the surrounding ones that it would be practically impossible for snipers to do their jobs - he had cocked his head and listened for the sound of helicopter blades. Nothing, not even police choppers.

(It was a distinct possibility that he had prayed to Lady Luck on the way up.)

(On his way back home that night, he had stopped at a temple and left her a BIG offering, because not only had she allowed him to escape without having to dodge bullets, she had also allowed him enough time to talk Tantei-kun down. If he hadn't…

...Well, he didn't want to dwell on that to deeply.)

So he'd settled himself on wall at the edge of the roof, which was presumably there to keep people from tumbling to their deaths (ha, he laughed at the concept of gravity), with his back to the moon as much as was possible while still facing the door.

He was dramatic. So sue him.

He didn't have long to wait before Tantei-kun had opened the entrance to the roof - not bursting through like he usually did, instead doing it rather sedately despite having apparently run up the stairs. The only sign of the utter carnage downstairs had been a slight shimmer of glitter on his left sleeve.

(KID had been impressed despite himself, because he had definitely aimed directly at Tantei-kun at least twice. He had known Tantei-kun was good, but he hadn't known he was _that_ good.)

"Tantei-kun," he had greeted.

"Oh. KID." Tantei-kun had sounded faintly surprised, as if he hadn't quite expected him to still be there. He hadn't reached for his watch, though, even though KID had known for a fact that he hadn't used his sleeping dart that day.

Even if he hadn't noticed his subdued behavior beforehand, _that_ would have clued him in.

Something was _really_ wrong with Conan.

Conan had surveyed the roof and surrounding area quickly but carefully (not unlike KID had just done, which was fairly concerning) before he had taken a few steps towards him. He had stopped about halfway across the narrow roof, shoulders tensed minutely now that he didn't have anything to his back (which was also worrying.). "...why are you still here?" he had asked frankly, cautiously.

KID had lifted one shoulder languidly. "My...more _enthusiastic_ fans have neglected to make an appearance tonight. I'm heartbroken, really," he had added, leaning forward slightly so that his monocle glinted in the moonlight. "...but that does allow me to make time for a certain detective who seems uncharacteristically _un_ enthusiastic."

Conan had sighed, taken a few more steps forward, then had apparently decided that walking two more steps would be too much effort and allowed his legs to collapse underneath him.

KID had, naturally, leapt off the wall and before Conan could blink had caught him and set him gently on the floor. (He could have sprained an ankle or something, okay. _Nobody gets hurt_.) He had sat down next to him, facing where he had been perched only moments before.

Conan had smirked wordlessly - only slightly, but it was something - as if something had gone according to plan.

(Kaito had later realized that Conan had wanted to get him off of the ledge and out of sight of anything and anyone not at the same height or immediately above them, which was a good survival technique if you were being sniped at occasionally. Really, how paranoid _was_ this kid? And how much of it was actually justified, since it was clear from what he had been privately calling 'the private eyes' requiem' that at least some of it was?)

The silence had stretched on for a time, companionable but as if it had been holding its breath, waiting for a knife teetering on the edge to drop.

It had been clear that Conan wasn't going to say anything unless he was prodded, so KID had said lightly, "I have all night, Conan-kun."

He hadn't, really, but Conan had seemed to appreciate the sentiment even as his mouth had twitched ever-so-slightly downwards - at the sound of his name? If Kaito hadn't been watching Conan carefully, he would have missed it.

Conan had let out a breath, shoulders slumping as he had pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his head on his arms on top of them. "Could you please not call me that?" he had muttered under his breath, barely making a sound and muffling what managed to struggle out of his mouth with his sleeves.

Kaito probably hadn't been supposed to hear it, but he had nodded slightly. He'd thought...well. It hadn't mattered then, and it didn't matter now. "What would you prefer? Tantei-kun?" A thought occurred to him. "Tantei-chan?"

Conan had shaken his head, almost violently.

 _That was a no, then._

"Meitantei-kun?" Honestly, Kaito had been thinking about updating his title for a while. The kid was scary-good at deducting...anything, really. It was probably pure luck that he hadn't figured out who KID really was yet.

Conan had shrugged, still mostly displeased, but had seemed to accept the appellation. "I can't tell you what I'd like to be called, so I suppose that will have to do. Just. Please not Conan. For a while."

That had been...extremely concerning, to be frank.

"Meitantei, then," Kaito had decided, producing a rose with a small flourish and setting it next to Conan's shoe. He hadn't missed that Conan had relaxed a little more at the sound of his new title.

 _Don't treat him like a child. Treat him as an equal. Got it._

(Even though he mostly did that already.)

"In that case, I still have all night, Meitantei."

Conan had scoffed slightly. "You have nowhere else to be?" he had asked, tired but with a hint of what might have at some point been amusement.

Kaito had shrugged languidly, keeping his eyes on Conan. "Nowhere important."

This had been what had caused Conan to make eye contact, lifting his head slightly out of the cradle of his arms. He had looked almost surprised.

It had taken a moment, but, "...why?" Conan had finally replied.

Kaito hadn't needed any time to consider his response: "You're one of my detectives," he had said simply. "And this is my heist. _No one gets hurt_. No one _leaves_ hurting if I can help it, regardless of their state upon entrance. In your case, Meitantei, I believe I might be of some help."

Conan had stared at him. "...That's simplistic," he had said after a few beats of silence. "And not practically feasible. Just because I'm at a heist, that means you have to fix me?"

Kaito had thought that'd been an interesting choice of words. _Fix me, huh?_

"No," he had replied frankly. "It's not because you're present at my heist. It's because you're one of my detectives. I'm a tad possessive of you all, you know."

"Of people, rather than gems?"

"What can I say? People are more interesting than a chunk of rock whose molecules have managed to arrange themselves in an aesthetically-pleasing way."

Conan had blinked, expression faintly nonplussed. "That's an interesting way for a thief to look at an emerald."

Kaito had shrugged, tossing said emerald in the air a few times - it would have been tacky to not acknowledge such a blunt statement - so that he could check the moonlight reflecting through it. Not Pandora, then. Shame. "I don't usually keep my prizes, though."

He had flipped the gem in Conan's direction, absurdly pleased when he had managed to make it land on Conan's folded arms.

Ah. There was the shrewd glint in his eyes.

Conan had studied the jewel for a long moment, then flicked his piercing gaze back to Kaito. "...You're looking for something, aren't you. Something you won't give back."

Kaito had shrugged easily. " _If_ I find what I'm looking for, it'll be better off destroyed."

Apparently, it was still possible for a criminal to surprise Conan, since that seemed to have thrown him for a loop. "...destroyed? So the snipers...they're after it, too."

Somehow, Kaito hadn't even been surprised to realize that Conan had noticed the snipers. The task force hadn't, yet, but honestly Conan was better - due to an unfortunate amount of practice, most likely. "They're after me," he had corrected, seeing no point in lying. He...trusted Conan, which was novel. And besides, who would believe a six-year-old if he did tell anyone, anyway? "They think that I already have it and I've hidden it somewhere."

A sharp intake of breath had meant that Conan had recognized the offering of trust. "...why are they shooting at you if they think you're the only one who knows where it's hidden?"

A fair question. Kaito hadn't really expected the conversation to go in this direction, but. Well. In for a penny. "They seem to think it makes me immortal," he replied lightly.

He had seen Conan's nose scrunch up in confusion, and had absently commended his self-dye job. It really did look natural, although he wasn't quite sure why Conan was dyeing his hair this young - though, if 'Conan' wasn't his name, it was entirely possible he was in witness protection or something similar. "...then why would you continue to steal, if they think you have the - whatever it is."

"I'm not entirely sure what it is, either, other than a big jewel - a doublet, more specifically. And I think they think that I'm trying to make them think that I _don't_ have it."

"Ah."

"Yes, well. Better them shooting at me than at someone who isn't highly skilled at the art of evasion."

Conan had inclined his head slightly, agreeing reluctantly. It wasn't as if he could argue that point, given that the majority of his 'plans' (the ones Kaito had been privy to, anyway) involved insurmountable risk to Conan's person, often by painting a giant target on his back.

The silence had stretched on, almost immeasurable, before Conan broke it with an abrupt, "I've seen a little over a hundred murders this year."

Kaito had blinked, nonplussed. "...It's barely even May."

Conan had groaned, curling into himself slightly. " _I know_."

"...Are you cursed?"

"Right?! This doesn't happen to anyone else I know - not even the other high school detectives." Kaito had carefully schooled his expression into a Poker Face, because he wasn't entirely sure how to process that slip, but Conan had continued as if he hadn't noticed. "I'm just...everywhere I go, someone dies, I - um, I help Occhan solve the case, then we go somewhere else and, whoops, someone else is dead! The only place that _doesn't_ happen is at heists, and you only send a notice once or twice a month, so it isn't very practical to rely on _this -_ " he had gestured vaguely to all of Kaito and a good chunk of the building, " - for a break."

"Not that I don't appreciate the compliment, but...that's a lot of murder, Meitantei." Kaito had said carefully.

Conan had deflated abruptly. "I know. It's preternatural. And most of them are disguised as something else - you know how murders are usually made to look like an accident or suicide?" Kaito had not, because he hadn't ever really contemplated the mechanics of getting away with murder; he knew his father's had been badly covered up, but didn't think that was _normal_ , though he guessed it kind of made sense if you didn't want to get caught. "Well, I've had to sol - had to help Occhan solve a case where the victim had committed suicide but made it look like a murder to get revenge. My _parents_ have kidnapped me a few times. And I've had bodies _literally fall out of the sky_ whenever I'm around Hattori. There've been a couple of times when they tried to make it look like a spirit or demon or curse or something was at fault. Oh, and there was that one case where the culprit used _someone else's CORPSE_ to fake being a vampire - "

Well. And here he had thought that having a class witch was unusual.

Seriously, he had meant it as a joke before, but he was actually going to have to ask Akako if 'being cursed to have an interesting life involving murders' was an veritable thing because _wow._

"I suppose...better someone who can uncover the truth than someone who can't. It _is_ a heavy burden to put on one person, though. Does staying at home prevent it at all?"

Conan had snorted. "No. One of the Detective Boys usually calls with a case, whether they realize it or not. Or Occhan will drag me somewhere and, poof, someone's dead."

"And here I thought my life was crazy," Kaito had muttered under his breath.

That had drawn a soft laugh from Conan. Mission accomplished. "If _you're_ the one saying it…"

Kaito had shrugged philosophically. "I think you've seen so much bad in the world that you've forgotten that good people _do_ exist, even if you personally don't run into them very often. Nakamori-keibu, for example. He's a good man - single father, tries to spend as much time as he can with his daughter, even chaperones school field trips when he can get the time off. Tantei-san - Hakuba, that is - has a tendency to jump to conclusions sometimes, but he's generally nice enough, if a tad arrogant. Ask him for help, and he will move mountains if he trusts you. Your Takagi-keiji, Chiba-keiji, Satou-keiji, Megure-keibu, Mouri-neechan...they're all good people. I think you might have stopped thinking about that since it seems that every new person you meet almost immediately becomes a murder suspect."

Conan had seemed to ponder that for a long moment, resting his chin on his knees so he could stare at the moon through the emerald, brow furrowed in thought. "...you may be right," he conceded.

Then he had laughed again, self-deprecating but a little louder than the first time. "What has my life come to? I'm taking advice from a criminal I just chased to the rooftop instead of arresting him."

"Excuse you," Kaito had said, mock-affronted. "Outside of my night job, I am perfectly law-abiding. Some people even call me a model citizen."

"Somehow, I doubt that." But the corner of his mouth had twitched up into a smirk, so Kaito had counted that as a win. Then Conan's eyes had narrowed as he cocked his head towards the stairs behind them. "Someone's coming."

Kaito had hummed noncommittally, leaning back on his hands but decidedly not standing up. "Hakuba, I think, judging by how angry the footsteps sound."

Conan had rolled his eyes, one side of his mouth still quirked up. "Go on." He had waved one hand lazily towards the edge of the roof, catching the emerald deftly with his other hand as it fell. "Only one of us will be jumping off that roof anytime soon, and it'll be the one with the hang glider."

That...had also been worrying. Kaito had taken a moment to process that statement.

Conan had snorted again. "Go on, stupid cat. Don't get arrested on my account."

KID had nodded lightly. "I do so enjoy avoiding jail."

Hakuba had chosen that moment to rip open the door, and KID had jumped off the building and glided away, chancing a few glances behind him just to make sure everything was...well, obviously it wasn't going to be _okay_ , but - manageable, maybe. Meitantei had got to his feet at some point and walked over to a glitter-covered Hakuba (who was positively _shaking_ with restrained anger), holding up the emerald.

KID had smiled, returning his focus to flying. The situation was out of his hands, but it seemed he had helped Meitantei's mental state at least a little.

...And _maybe_ he had slipped the tracker inside Conan's phone case before he left. Someone had to keep an eye on the kid, after all.

Plausible deniability aside, _that_ was why his blood ran cold two weeks later at the sound of those notes.

 _C#3, C#4, C4, B3, C4._

 _C, O, N, A, N._

That - wasn't good.

Ignoring his teacher, he reached into his backpack and pulled out his phone, not bothering to disguise his movements as anything but what they were.

" _Kuroba-san - !"_

"Emergency," he said abruptly, unlocking his phone with his fingerprint then flipping through the screens until he got to the tracking app's icon. He tapped it twice, quickly, then waited with baited breath.

 _Signal lost._

Okay, that might not be too bad - it could have fallen off, maybe, or something, since it _had_ been two weeks and the tracker _was_ only a prototype. Luckily, he'd had a safety net for that kind of event. He scrolled through a list of options, tapping the one that connected his phone to the camera the dove following Conan around was wearing.

...What was it doing at the airport?

Kaito rewound the footage an hour, then played it at triple speed.

A car drove up to the Mouris' place. Nothing identifiable about it, and its plates were half-covered in mud. A woman (tall, light hair, _definitely_ not what the picture of Conan's mother he had on file looked like) got out of the passenger seat, leaving the car idling on the curb. She went into the building, then approximately ten minutes later returned carrying Conan. He appeared to be asleep.

They got in the car, the woman carefully making sure not to hit Conan's head against anything, then drove off.

His dove managed to perch on the car, stealing a ride instead of trying to keep up. (That deserved a treat, later).

Thirty minutes later, they arrived at the airport. The woman got out of the car, still carrying an asleep Conan, and paid the driver before removing a small, flowery suitcase from the trunk. The car drove away, leaving them on the curb for a moment before the woman walked inside the airport.

Kaito's dove followed them through security - nobody stopped them there, despite the fact that he was _certain_ that Conan didn't actually have a passport even though he'd apparently spent most of his life living in the U.S. - and into the waiting area.

Fifteen minutes later, the woman carrying Conan boarded a flight bound for the Heathrow airport.

Five minutes after that, the tracker's signal was lost, presumably because its range was currently _only_ all of Japan. He hadn't thought he'd need more than that, but evidently he had been wrong.

He set his phone face down on his desk and tried to even out his breathing.

" _\- ba-san. Kuroba-san!"_

Kaito blinked, startled, before training his eyes on the teacher.

She had her hands on her hips, clearly impatient. She'd probably been calling his name for some time. Once she saw that she had his attention, she asked somewhat accusatorily, "Is there anything you would like to share with the class?"

"...My mother is in the hospital," Kaito croaked, substituting 'mother' for detective' and 'in the hospital' for 'has been kidnapped.'

The teacher's hands flew to her mouth. She obviously hadn't been expecting that answer. "Oh. Which one?"

"One of the ones in France," he said as drily as he could, given that he was hyperventilating slightly. "I need to book a flight."

"Well." The teacher gesticulated wildly for a moment, clearly flustered, before settling on, "You're excused, Kuroba-san. Give your mother our best wishes."

Kaito nodded absently, loading his stuff into his backpack and then jumping out the window, ignoring the door entirely. His classmates were somewhat immune to his antics by now, and it wasn't as if that particular trick was noteworthy at this point, so there was no outcry as he landed on the pavement outside and dashed towards the station.

He called his mother on the way, cutting off her greeting with a terse one in French, so she would know how serious the situation was, before requesting she pretend to be in the hospital if anyone should ask. She agreed somewhat hesitantly, but she knew that he didn't like speaking French on the phone if he could help it, preferring video calls so that his gesticulations came across as well. Which meant that he needed to not be overheard by anyone.

Which meant that this was probably KID-related.

She acquiesced, and Kaito thanked her distractedly while he texted Jii-chan that, surprise, their next heist was actually going to be in London next week instead of Osaka in two.

As soon as she hung up, Kaito booked a plane ticket to Paris. From there, he could take the Eurostar to England and it wouldn't show up on his passport. The earliest flight he could get was in two days, on Sunday, which was good timing.

KID closed the door to his house, cracking his knuckles. He had some preparations to make and a Meitantei to find.

* * *

Hello, sorry, I just realized that I haven't been copying my author's notes.

This story is also on AO3 under the same name, and it will probably update there first. Updates are usually about once a month, because college is a thing that is happening.

In this story, I'm taking most of the movies (especially 10, 14, and 19) as canon, but not 3 because KID doesn't know Conan is Shinichi. I'm also going to try and not include TOO many spoilers for more recent episodes/chapters because I know not everyone has enough time to get through 1020 chapters and 915 episodes. I'm up to date, though, so no promises...

Also, my friend convinced me to get a discord recently, so...hit me up if you want to talk, I guess? blenderfullasarcasm#3678


	6. Chapter 6

Conan stared blankly at his phone for a solid minute and a half before sighing. He'd have to find a charger now, and since his phone had some rather... _special_ modifications, it wasn't going to be easy.

Although - he'd had a backpack, back in Sherlock's flat, hadn't he? He'd forgotten about it after the word 'case.' If he were lucky (rare though it was), his chargers might be in there. They rarely left his side, after all, since those same modifications had a tendency to make the battery drain faster than an iPhone's. He'd have to find a way to charge both his phones without drawing suspicion, though… The method he used at the Mouri's place probably wasn't going to work here.

Well, there wasn't anything he could do about it now.

...It took him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that it was possible his Conan phone still had some charge left.

As soon as the thought occurred to him, he slipped his Shinichi phone into the same pocket as his Conan phone and rummaged around for a moment, pretending to look for something. Except what he was actually doing was cataloguing what he had with him - which, to be honest, wasn't a lot. A couple rubber bands, his phones, the usual Ziploc bags full of his "oh-look-someone's-dead-what-a-surprise" kit, and a handkerchief or two was what was revealed to be the contents of his pockets, both from his pants and his jacket. He sighed frustratedly, pretending to give up on searching for something - headphones, if Donovan asked - and pulling out his phone again. This time, thanks to a quick sleight-of-hand, it was Conan's.

(KID was an... _influence._ He wasn't sure whether he could be classified as a good one or a bad one, though, since Conan had _technically_ been doing illegal things before they'd met face-to-face.)

(Identity fraud was a necessary evil, unfortunately.)

(But hey. The important part was that Donovan hadn't noticed him switching out his phones.)

He tried turning it on, but it stayed deader than a lot of the murder victims Conan ran into.

Donovan glanced over at him. "What's that you've got there, then?"

"It's my phone!" Conan turned it around to show her, smiling brightly. Then his face fell.

"I was gonna check my messages, but it dead," he said, lip trembling. He was quoting something he vaguely recalled Hattori saying, which had presumably been a quote from some sort of meme. Kids spoke in memes, right?

Conan shuddered internally. He wasn't going to be trying that again. It actually physically pained him to make a mistake like that on purpose after he'd spent so much time studying English grammar rules.

Donovan frowned. "Didn't you charge it overnight?"

Conan stared at her blankly. It actually hurt, trying to keep himself from rolling his eyes. "I was on a plane overnight. A European plane. The plugs aren't the same."

Presumably, that was. The bit about the plane. Unless whoever had sent him here had somehow managed time travel or teleportation, which he doubted.

(Unless it had been KID, because then there was a distinct possibility - )

(No, he was pretty sure that KID knew he was in a dangerous position - if not that he was hiding behind a false identity, because KID was _smart_ \- and he'd been pretty clear about _people not getting hurt_.

...Sometimes, Conan really couldn't understand his insistence. People were always going to do stupid things; how was he going to protect _everyone_ at his heists, even from themselves, while simultaneously (evidently) keeping track of his detectives' mental states?)

(Oh, wow, he'd just referred to himself as one of KID's detectives - as in, a detective who belonged to KID.)

(Apparently English coffee wasn't strong enough to allow him impulse control. Or, possibly, John had made it weak, since an apparent child was going to drink it. Or…

Conan's eyes flashed dangerously. That _wanker_ had given him _decaf_. And he'd been too tired to notice.)

(It was a good thing he was in the middle of a case - otherwise he'd be using a lot of his brain power to come up with a few ways to get back at John.)

(As it was, he _might_ have deduced the recipe of the super glue/glitter mess from KID's last heist and he _might_ have seen most of the ingredients in the kitchen of 221B Baker Street…)

"I might have a charger in the car somewhere, if you want me to have a look - "

Conan shook his head, cutting her off. "Thank you, Donovan-keiji, but my phone is weird. Its cord is special."

Oh, wow, that came out awkwardly. Words were hard when he was jet lagged and _had had no real coffee, damn it, John Watson -_

Luckily, both his mental rant and the awkward silence between him and Donovan was broken by Lestrade's reappearance from the house with a handcuffed Bradley Greene.

Lestrade silently showed a magazine in an evidence bag to Donovan, whose face twisted in disgust before she cast a scathing look at Greene. He was 'helped' into the patrol car with maximum prejudice, though not enough that anyone could call the two police officers on it. He was shaking so badly that if he hadn't seen the hardness in their eyes, Conan _might_ have thought it had been an accident.

There was silence until the doors were locked. Then, Lestrade leaned back against the side of the car and sighed, staring off into the distance. "You know, Conan was exactly right. It was a good thing I'd asked to turn on my recorder, because he confessed to everything after I pointed out the magazines and binoculars - which were right where he'd said they'd be, by the way - and then inquired politely about why he'd chosen to move so suddenly. He was a complete wreck, almost immediately."

Conan shrugged. He could have told them as much beforehand, but had decided that getting the pedophile arrested was more important than Greene's mostly hidden skittishness. Besides, if it had resulted in a confession that proved him right beyond a shadow of a doubt...

Well.

It wasn't as if he'd _planned_ it or anything.

" - and if I'm counting correctly, the final count of his confessions was two counts of stalking, eighteen counts of possession, and two counts of molestation. We could probably get him on a couple more in attempted, but that's probably enough to put him away for a decent chunk of time."

Donovan shifted to face Conan, her gaze piercing into him. "He was...completely right. Completely. Within thirty seconds of seeing the man, he gave you an accurate count of the crimes we could arrest him for, as well as where to find the evidence?"

Lestrade nodded silently.

Donovan coughed. "I suppose that's a point in favor of his being psychic, then."

Another nod. Then a sigh. "We'd better take Greene back to the station so we can process him - any chance we could get another patrol car?"

Donovan shook her head. "Not with the sting going on uptown. They've been waiting _years_ to bust that gang. They've commandeered all the equipment that wasn't nailed down."

Lestrade frowned, rubbing his hand against his temples. "And, of course, we still have to get the body to Molly Hooper - she's the one on duty today, isn't she?"

Conan frowned. Another name. It was getting a little tedious, trying to keep track of all of his observations about these people. New country, and all that.

(And he hadn't had the chance to sit down and figure out _how_ or _why_ he had ended up in _England_.)

"Yeah, I think so. Better her than Johnson, in any case. He can't stand being in the same room as the freak for more than a few minutes."

Conan's frown deepened. Had Sherlock really been dealing with this since he had started working with the police? And here he'd been prepared to like Donovan... "You shouldn't say things like that," he said abruptly, imitating Mitsuhiko and pointing accusingly at Donovan. "Ran-neechan would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you."

(She wouldn't, really. Probably.

She might go for a concrete-breaking karate chop, however, which was probably worse.)

Donovan blinked, taken aback. "Sorry, what?"

"What you're calling Sherlock-niichan is mean." No, that wouldn't be enough to make it stop. What if - yes, probably, that would work. "It's not his fault he can see _…_ " Long pause, make them think about what he might say. "... _things_ other people can't."

He stared up at her with wide eyes, looking towards the sun behind her to make them water, before abruptly looking down at his sneakers.

A sharp intake of breath from Lestrade said that he understood what Conan was trying to imply. Some semi-frantic gesticulations he could only just glimpse from the corner of his eyes almost made him smile, so instead he bit his lip, letting the pain make his eyes water even more.

' _Come on, Sally_ (possibly Zalli or Sari but... _probably_ Sally? Lip-reading was hard enough without the words being in his second language) _, can't you see that this kid's probably been called a freak a couple hundred times? You can't tell me he hasn't been bullied - especially if he's actually psychic!'_ or something like that.

Donovan coughed. "Right. I'm sorry, Conan. I didn't realize - "

Before she could dig herself into a hole, Lestrade jumped in. "Your, er, Ran-nay-chan would wash your mouth out with soap, you said? I thought that was only a British thing."

Conan shrugged, allowing himself to be distracted. Washing mouths out with soap was the closest equivalent he could come up with that didn't sound too much like child endangerment. "Well, I mean, if I say things like that a couple of times we'd probably talk about it first. Sometimes people are mean and they tell me one word means something else so I don't know it's wrong. And I'm from America so I had problems with addressing people and they'd get angry. So Ran-neechan and I had a loooong discussion when I first got to Japan about what I'm allowed to call people and she's _scary_ and I don't like being wrong so that's why you're Lestrade-keibu and she's Donovan-keiji and Watson-sensei is Watson-sensei."

Conan paused to breathe, subtly gauging their reactions because that whole situation wasn't entirely untrue and clearly he had different standards for what was 'normal.'

( _Maybe_ he'd slipped and called her 'Ran' a time too many. _Maybe_ that had resulted in an hour long lecture on proper forms of address in Japan. He'd known it all, of course - having been, you know, born and raised there - but that was one aspect of his hastily concocted backstory that was actually helpful in covering up his mistakes.)

(Except when he had briefly reverted to his real age and had called her ' _Ran-neechan.'_ )

"Why am I a 'kay-jee' if John Watson is a 'sen-say'?" Donovan asked, apparently glad to forget that she'd been contributing to a hostile work environment for Sherlock.

(So maybe Conan was a little protective of his - colleague…)

"You're a keiji 'cause Lestrade-keibu called you Sergeant, right?" Conan replied, intentionally amping up the childishness of his speech. "So that means you're a _junsa-buchou_ like Takagi-keiji. And Sherlock-niichan called Lestrade-keibu an Inspector, so that means that he's like Megure-keibu. And then Watson-sensei is a doctor, so he's like Araide-sensei."

"Then why is Sherlock a 'knee-chan'?"

" 'Cause he doesn't do anything special, right? He's young and he's not a doctor and he's not police so he doesn't have a rank," Conan said bluntly. Then he reconsidered. "Well, I guess I could call him Holmes-tantei… But that would be weird." Wait, no, he meant special _ized_ , not special, damn it. Curse John Watson and his decaf.

For some reason they both found that hilarious, trying to stifle snickers behind their hands. Conan didn't get it, but, well, what else was new. English people were weird.

He didn't really have time to ponder it, though, because at that moment Sherlock and John emerged from the taped-off house, followed by two officers carrying what was presumably Maria's body on a stretcher. The posh git appeared to be berating - or possibly arguing with? It was hard to tell from a distance - the fake posh git.

John looked like he was regretting his life choices.

Conan identified with that quite a bit.

(But then again, he hadn't _chosen_ to live with _Sherlock Holmes_ , of all people. He'd brought that on himself.

Compared to that, getting shrunk was a picnic.)

Lestrade sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Too bad Conan didn't have any aspirin to offer him. His pockets only held so much.

Donovan rolled her eyes then stared up towards the sky, probably begging for patience as the posh git himself caught sight of them and stormed over, ridiculous coat flapping behind him.

(Honestly.

And Conan thought _KID_ had a flair for the dramatic.)

(...Neither of them had anything on his mother, though.)

He shuddered, unprepared for the onslaught of images that brought to mind. Honestly, if he ever developed PTSD, it was going to be because of _her_ , not because of any of the many, many murders he came across or anything the Black Organization ever did.

(The whole 'pretending to be Conan's mother who was actually a member of the Black Org but was really his actual mother the entire time' came to mind specifically. Also the times that she put him in a bullet-proof vest and taught him how to dodge by shooting at him with rubber bullets.

And literally any time she drove him anywhere.)

...He must have blacked out for a bit because the next thing he knew, he was in a taxi going... somewhere, probably? Apparently he'd been too busy reliving some of his mother's more terrifying undertakings to realize that he'd automatically followed John and Sherlock into a taxi and they were now headed...likely towards the station? They were following the patrol car from earlier - he recognized the license plate - so that was probably a reasonable assumption. Although...they could be headed for the morgue? Either was likely at this point.

...He _could_ just ask though.

Conan tugged gently on John's sleeve. "Hey, hey, Watson-sensei? Where are we going?"

John flinched slightly - it would have been a jump in any non-military-trained person - and looked at Conan with slightly widened eyes. "C-conan! What are you doing here?!"

Conan bestowed upon him an unimpressed, gimlet-eyed stare. "I didn't want to ride with the pedophile I just arrested and you can't exactly just leave me at a crime scene."

John blinked. "Well, no, I - !" He frowned, seeming a bit flustered. " I was going to ask one of the officers to - "

Sherlock cut him off by leaning forwards suddenly, eyes fixing abruptly on Conan. "That _you_ arrested?" he asked, without much in the way of inflection.

(Conan supposed it was too much to ask for Sherlock to be too absorbed in the pageant queen case to remember that he had proclaimed that Conan was A Case.)

Conan shrugged then deliberately ignored him because he _could_ _do that_ when he looked seven and it wasn't even odd because _kids did that_ , ha. Well, as long as he didn't make it too obvious. He couldn't believe he was only _just_ realizing this now. It was one of the only upsides to this situation.

(Another was the fact that he could crawl around on the floor at KID heists looking for traps without it looking too out of the ordinary. That had come in handy a time or two.)

(And then there was the whole pouting thing and the crying thing and the sparkly eyes thing - all of which he was able to do on command, thanks to his actress of a mother and the fact that crying children were offered the kind of sweets she was fond of at the drop of a hat - which were useful for abrupt subject changes and diverting suspicion, even though it kind of made him die on the inside to have to resort to it most of the time.)

Conan kicked his legs back and forth aimlessly, letting his lower lip jut forward and resolutely ignoring Sherlock's intent gaze. "I wanna know where we're going. I know it's either the morgue or the police station, so you should tell me which it is 'cause I don't know my way around London yet." He added just a _hint_ of a whine, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

John sighed, apparently accepting that now he was dealing with both Sherlock _and_ a pint-sized version of him. "We're going to - "

Sherlock interrupted him again, with a (frankly unnecessary, in Conan's opinion), "Weren't you _listening_?"

Conan shrugged petulantly. "Not to _you_ ," he inserted quickly in the moment of silence as Sherlock inhaled deeply in what was probably preparation for a rant.

John choked on a laugh while Sherlock blinked wordlessly, mouth hanging open slightly - as if he couldn't imagine anyone ever _not_ listening to him and taking his word as gospel - his rant evidently derailed.

"You should close your mouth before you catch flies," Conan added knowledgeably. "That's what Mom always says."

(Yukiko had never said that even once in her life.)

(Neither had Ran or even Kisaki-sensei.)

(He just liked screwing with Sherlock Holmes, okay. It was payback for the last time they'd met.)

(Not that Sherlock knew that, but whatever.)

John's muffled laughter subsided, at least enough for him to answer Conan's question. "We're going to the morgue, Conan."

Conan bobbed his head up and down. " 'Mkay. Hooper-kenshikan sounds nice." Or perhaps 'patient' was more accurate, given that she was apparently able to consistently work with Sherlock.

 _That_ focused Sherlock's attention squarely back upon him. " _'Kenshikan' -_ that's Japanese for coroner." Because _of course_ he would know that. "Why do you know who Molly Hooper is?"

Conan shrugged and deliberately turned to face out the window. "Oh, wow! Is that Big Ben?" he asked, pointing out the window and blatantly changing the subject.

(It was, as a matter of fact. And, oh look, there was the bridge with the drain where he found that clue for that one case with the bombs. He was still kind of wondering why all the people involved in that case were named after Greek gods, because that had been pretty strange.

Well. Not as strange as the few cases he'd had where the victim had committed suicide and then framed someone else for their suicide by making it look like murder. Those were usually pretty odd.)

He ended up ignoring Sherlock's existence for the rest of the relatively short car ride, mostly to get back at John for the _decaf_ earlier. Since Sherlock was unaccustomed to being ignored, it worked quite well.

(Conan was about eighty percent sure that he was still going to do the glitter glue thing later because one does _not_ give a caffeine addict _decaf_ and expect to come out of it smelling of roses.

If John had done that to Haibara, Conan doubted anyone would have ever found the body. Even him, the corpse magnet.

Conan had no problem admitting that Haibara Ai was _scary_. Not the same way that Ran was scary, though, because Ran was the ' _I will crush your head with my fist'_ to Haibara's ' _I will crush your head with my mind and make it look like an accident.'_ )

A chill ran down his spine at the thought and he repressed a shiver. He _really_ needed to contact Haibara, since he'd probably missed their first-thing-in-the-morning, make-sure-you-haven't-been-kidnapped-or-murdered-in-the-middle-of-the-night check-in, and she always got tetchy when he did that. Which was understandable, really, considering that they were both targets of an international criminal organization. He'd be the same way if she ever missed the check-in, but so far she hadn't, even once. He, on the other hand, very rarely missed check-in, and if he did it was either because he was in the middle of a case or had gotten back to the Mouris' so late that he'd forgotten to plug in his phone or ended up sleeping through his alarm.

Haibara had hardly spoken to him for the rest of the day, which was fair since she seemed to be doing her utmost to stave off intermittent panic attacks. The kids hadn't really noticed, since she was _very_ good at keeping them hidden and he'd tried to help cover for her, since they were his fault in the first place. Kobayashi-sensei usually looked at them both strangely on those days, and he couldn't quite figure out her expression, since he was generally paying more attention to the kids and Haibara.

He'd ended up asking his parents to send him a bag of the most expensive coffee beans they could find so he could make a suitable apology, because he really hadn't _meant_ to worry her but that was just his luck. Or, rather, lack thereof.

(Now, if he didn't reply within five minutes, she tried calling him. That usually woke him up, if his phone was near enough and not completely dead. If he still wasn't answering, she tried the Agency landline next, which had an awful, awful ringtone - on its own, that was bad enough, but somehow _someone_ \- and he knew _exactly_ who it was, but Conan was playing the long game so he couldn't confront them about it - had "accidentally" turned the volume up all the way and there wasn't any way to turn it back down, unfortunately. _That_ did the trick.

...He _really_ needed to find his charger soon.)

He blinked, shaking himself from his thoughts as the taxi jerked to a stop outside a hospital - St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in fact, according to the sign. Well, at least a kid wouldn't be _too_ out of the ordinary here. Except they _were_ headed for the morgue, so…

He ended up mostly hiding behind Sherlock's Dramatic Coat and presence, since he was the kind of person who attracted attention merely by existing, though he did actively do a fair bit to augment that.

So thanks to Sherlock and his ego, Conan managed to make it down to the morgue without anyone noticing he was there - excepting John, who kind of sighed and just let it happen. They met up with Lestrade and Donovan, who were waiting just outside the door, apparently having dropped off Greene at the station - probably during the time John had insisted be spent on getting a brief drive-around of London from the taxi driver so that Conan could be more familiar with the landscape.

Conan gave them a little wave, making Donovan crack a small smile and Lestrade roll his eyes - probably because he thought that kids didn't really belong at _crime scenes_ , much less the _morgue_. Which was fair, mostly. But Conan wasn't exactly a typical kid, now, was he.

Lestrade sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing deeply before knocking on the door.

A light, feminine voice called, "Come in."

As soon as Lestrade opened the door, Conan froze, a wave of intense emotion striking him like an icicle straight through the lungs. Because while he didn't exactly have Haibara's sensitivity to the Black Organization members, he could usually still tell when one of the higher-ups was in his vicinity, and there _definitely was._

He glanced around the room as Sherlock swept in with John following close behind, eyes darting around quickly before they settled on the only person in the room who was still alive. She was nondescript, a little on the mousy side, and had a small smile on her face. She looked a little nervous, shifting her weight from side to side and chewing on her bottom lip, and her gaze seemed focused on Sherlock even though she couldn't seem to look at him for more than ten seconds without flushing slightly and glancing away.

She didn't _look_ like part of an international crime organization...

She wasn't wearing all black - or any at all, really; in fact, she was wearing a white lab coat, a faded maroon jumper over a cream button-up, and reddish skirt - but, well...neither did Bourbon. Vermouth, as well, and Mizunashi Rena generally didn't stick to just the one shade either. Undercover agents evidently didn't need to follow the dress code. In fact, he wasn't exactly sure that there _was_ one in the first place; it might just be coincidence that the majority of the members he'd come into contact with wore black constantly. Maybe they thought it made them look edgy...

In any case, he couldn't ignore the feeling. Since she was the only living person in the morgue (and he highly doubted he would get that feeling from a corpse), he resolved to spend as little time in her presence as possible.

(Hey, look at that. That must be that 'self preservation' thing Haibara had been trying to beat into his head for the past year and a half.)

Conan tugged at Lestrade's sleeve to get his attention, staying just out of sight behind the door. When Lestrade turned to look down at him, he said, "I don't wanna go in there."

Lestrade gave him a weird look, like he was trying to frown and raise his eyebrows at the same time. It didn't work very well. "You don't? Why not?"

Which Conan supposed was a fair question, given that he had spent most of his day _(life)_ hanging around a crime scene trying to solve a mystery. Luckily, it only took about two seconds to come up with an excuse - or, rather, fall back on his new default excuse: "I see dead people."

(He _really_ needed to figure out the English word for 'psychic.' This was getting ridiculous.)

To his credit, Lestrade managed to connect the fairly vague dots Conan was supplying him with almost immediately. "Right, morgue - lots of dead bodies probably means lots of ghosts, doesn't it?"

Conan nodded, eyes big and shiny with the tears he was prepared to start unleashing at a moment's notice. "The people who were murdered are really angry. Not Maria, though, 'cause she doesn't really understand what's happened yet."

There was a moment of strained silence before Lestrade broke it with a hesitant, "Does - " He paused, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was considering saying, but he soldiered on. "Does Maria know how she...passed away?"

Conan snorted and folded his arms petulantly, as if Lestrade had said something particularly stupid. "No, it doesn't _work_ like that. And you can say 'died,' Lestrade-keibu, I'm not _four_."

"How _does_ it work, then?" Lestrade asked, looking both morbidly curious and like he was dying a little on the inside. Conan was impressed by his emotional range.

He had to think about his answer for a moment, though, so he forced a thoughtful expression onto his face and bought time with, "It's kinda hard to explain...especially since I haven't really spoken much English in the past couple years...um…"

It was mostly hard to explain because he hadn't exactly thought that bit through just yet. If he was going to pretend to be psychic, then he probably should have looked up some information about it since he'd spent the previous fourteen or so years of his life actively avoiding anything remotely concerning the supernatural - aside from what Ran had forced on him and information he'd needed for cases. And heist notices, as well, he supposed.

Actually…

A few heists ago, if he remembered correctly (which he did), the target had been 'The Spirit's Cry' or something like that and the hints in the notice had gone completely over his head until he'd accidentally left it out on the table (because apparently he got his own personal notices now) and Ran had seen it. Apparently it was mostly common knowledge, so Conan, dying a little on the inside, had listened to her ramble about ghosts and spirits for a solid ten minutes before he figured out the answer.

So, if he hadn't completely repressed the memory, it was probably still in his head somewhere.

"Um, so… Not all dead people get ghosts, right? If they die mostly content or without any big thing that's holding them back, they just kinda disappear. But even with the ones who die really violently can't actually remember the first few minutes before or after their deaths. Ran-neechan said something about trauma, I think? I dunno. Some of them don't remember anything at all, 'cause they've got amnesia." Which _was_ a word he knew, ha. He _knew_ his terrible English detective dramas would come in handy one day. "That's usually the ones that are really, really bad. And then, when they're kids, they usually don't understand that they're dead? And that means that they don't understand what I'm talking about when I start asking questions. So that's annoying - "

Conan was confident in his detective skills, sure. But he wasn't an _idiot_. He knew that he wouldn't be able to pull off 'psychic' in front of people who were used to Sherlock unless he could come up with some reasonable restrictions to what he could 'find out' from the 'ghosts.' He might get some leeway for being a kid, and for being supposedly unused in English, though, so that would be helpful.

"And sometimes I get flashes of things from alive people, too," was how he ended his explanation. "I can usually find proof, too, so don't worry about that. Does that answer your question? 'Cause I'm hungry and I don't wanna be here too long."

Lestrade sighed, giving in - not that he was trying too hard to resist, since Conan _did_ look like he was about five and five-year-olds shouldn't really be hanging around near a morgue if it could be helped. "Okay, let me just - " He ducked his head around the door and into the room to tell Donovan that he was going to get some food and did anyone want anything.

She asked for a cup of coffee, two sugars and a splash of cream, and a bagel. John requested a bacon butty and added a cup of coffee, black, after looking at Sherlock, almost as an afterthought. The woman - presumably the coroner, Molly Hooper - gestured to a mug of probably-tea on her desk and said she didn't need anything.

Conan grinned maniacally behind Lestrade's back as he closed the door and began walking back the way they'd come. This was his chance to hit three birds with one stone - he could get back at Sherlock for the last time they'd met by stealing his drink, get back at John for the decaf by stealing the drink he'd ordered for Sherlock which would force him to deal with a whiny detective, _and_ \- most importantly - he could get a decent cup of _caffeinated_ coffee into his system.

Hell, at this point he'd even take the stuff at the police station that was so thick he had to _chew_ it.

He bounced off after Lestrade, feeling that things might possibly be looking up for the first time since he'd found himself on Sherlock and John's couch that morning.


	7. Chapter 7

Conan was just taking his first sip of real coffee that morning from what was meant to be Sherlock's cup but instead had been sacrificed on the altar of supreme pettiness when he heard the scream. He allowed himself a small sigh before he chugged down the rest of his sludge-like coffee and ran directly towards the noise.

"Wh- Conan?! Where are you - "

"My murder senses are tingling!" he shot over his shoulder, not bothering to wait until Lestrade processed the statement before darting around the corner back into the cafeteria.

Ha. He'd been waiting to use that one.

The source of the commotion was evidently a small table on the left side of the room. It sat four people, though one of them had apparently fallen out of his chair onto the floor and was clutching at his throat. The woman who had been sitting next to him had jumped to her feet with her hands over her mouth, pushing her chair into the middle of the aisle and just barely missing the man who had been walking behind her but was now frozen, taking in the scene. The other two people at the table were leaning forward in their seats, trying to figure out what was going on.

What was going on was that the man was choking to death - asphyxiation, likely from anaphylactic shock, if he wasn't much mistaken, given the fact that the victim was choking on air as well as his tongue and sweat was rapidly beading on his forehead even in the heavily air-conditioned hospital. A quick glance at the victim's lips showed rapid swelling.

Conan ran forward, breaking them out of their shock with a quick, "Is anyone here a doctor?" because, seriously, literally all of them were wearing scrubs and white coats and yet none of them were doing anything to save the poor guy.

The woman shook her head briefly to clear it, then rummaged around in the asphyxiating guy's pocket for an EpiPen. The other three - the two still seated at the table and the guy who'd nearly been knocked over - took a little longer to get into action, but started yelling codes and things that Conan didn't pay all that much attention to since it would use up too much of his newly-caffeinated brain power to try and translate numbers heard in English to numbers he recognized to Japanese hospital codes, especially when English codes were probably entirely different. Honestly, since he was already in a hospital that would presumably provide better first aid than he could, he should probably just start taking a look at the crime scene (because, yeah, it was definitely a crime scene, otherwise his murder senses wouldn't have been tingling.)

(And also because no one other than lactose-intolerant people deliberately consumed something they knew they were allergic to, and Britain was generally pretty good about labeling those sorts of things, especially in hospitals.)

(It could've been an accident or something, Conan supposed, but he hadn't had a body drop in his vicinity for a couple of days now, so…)

Quick look into the victim's coffee cup, swish it around a little ( _carefully!_ ) - yup, small plastic capsule, not completely dissolved just yet, plus some suspicious-looking liquid mostly mixed into the drink, only a slightly different color - had the guy been poisoned, maybe? There were a lot of poisons that mimicked the effects of anaphylactic shock… But it could also have been that someone had intentionally caused an allergic reaction in hopes of it being fatal, despite the vast number of doctors around given the fact that this was a hospital…

But, then again, it had taken a seven-year-old to shock the four doctors into doing something about the asphyxiating man they were standing next to.

Hm.

Either they were woefully incompetent, in shock, or interns.

Anyway.

A sniff revealed something very odd, for a case like this. A faint whiff of something chemical - which wasn't all that strange - plus a hint of…

Licorice, maybe? It was a little hard to place, what with the overwhelming smell of coffee enveloping it even though it was fairly pungent. Perhaps something more fruity?

Whatever the scent was, it didn't belong in black coffee, so it probably was related to the partially-dissolved capsule.

Conan ignored the victim being rushed away on a gurney, trying to focus instead on identifying the smell because it was definitely important. The other parts of the case were actually pretty typical - in his experience, at least - so as soon as he talked to the suspects it would probably be clear who the culprit was. But, as always, he'd need proof, which was usually the tricky bit. Instinct and intuition weren't enough. Which was fair, granted, since he hadn't come across anyone who could match him in terms of intuition yet (since at this point it was basically an extremely sensitive compass that pointed to either the victim or the culprit, depending on the situation) and it would be dangerous to just let any run-of-the-mill police officer arrest people on gut feelings. The burden of proof always fell on the accuser, which was fair and easy enough in most cases, but some always managed to be spectacularly tedious...

Ugh. What was that scent and why was it so familiar?

(And why was it bringing to mind images of an empty house and KID, of all people?)

Conan started, situational awareness abruptly taking over the forefront of his mind as the woman who had found the victim's EpiPen (and probably saved his life) tried to follow the gurney.

Nope, not happening.

Conan stretched an arm like he was clothes-lining someone, trying to stop her in her tracks. It worked, in that she nearly tripped over him and had to flail wildly to regain her balance, which prevented her from going after the victim's gurney. Once she straightened herself up, she placed her hands rather decisively on her hips and glared down at him, opening her mouth for what was no doubt going to be a positively scathing rebuke, but Conan cut her off before she could even utter the first syllable. "Doctor-san, you're going to need to stay here."

The scowl disappeared from her face for a moment, her expression cycling through bemusement, indignation, and irritation before it returned. "And why on earth would I do what a six-year-old tells me to do?! That's my fiancé on that gurney! He nearly died!" She visibly bit back something that would probably have been along the lines of _"Do you even know what death is, kid?"_

(Conan probably knew better than she did, even though she had doubtless seen a fair number of patients pass over since this was her third - no, fourth month of her internship, judging by her shoes and ankles.)

...He was used to people at a crime scene doing whatever he said automatically, as long as he said whatever he needed to in a suitably commanding tone, so that she was arguing with him was a bit of an unwelcome surprise - though, he supposed, not entirely unexpected. He had yet to build up any credibility in this country, after all, much less the city, so why on earth would anyone listen to him? Apparently he'd trained Ran and the police force to give his observations some credit when murder was potentially involved, enough that civilians didn't bother to question him after they saw them deferring to him anymore - completely unintentionally, of course. Or maybe it was just that people in shock tended to take orders better? No, that didn't sound right...

Regardless, he obviously didn't have that kind of credibility in London just yet. (Yet?)

(Actually, he was pretty sure that whenever someone called 110 to report a body, at this point one of the standard questions was whether or not there was a little kid running around the scene with glasses and an obsessively neat hairstyle.)

(Clearly, this wasn't the case in the country where he'd only been involved in one serial bombing case as Conan...and he was pretty sure that he'd managed to keep his involvement hidden, for the most part, probably. Well, he hadn't had to give a witness statement, so there wasn't any physical record of his name or anything. It was possible that one of the officers had mentioned him in their report or something, but it was...fairly unlikely.)

(Come to think of it, the 110 call fielders probably had a great amount to do with the abrupt decrease in civilians questioning his presence at crime scenes that had started a couple of months ago...)

Conan didn't really have an answer to her question that didn't involve some form of 'I'm a detective,' which she wasn't going to believe - and who would, really? Who would rationally believe that an elementary schooler would have seen (and solved) more murders than probably half of Scotland Yard put together? No one sane, that's who. And presumably these interns - because, yes, he'd figured they were interns in part thanks to the bags under their eyes, the scuff marks on their shoes, the color of their scrubs, and the length of their white coats - had been studying medicine and logic for the better part of the last decade, which wouldn't exactly predispose them to gullibility.

(Even if it was the truth.)

But, well, it wasn't like he had a better answer so -

"Because I'm a detective and you're a suspect right now, Doctor-san."

She snorted and stepped around him. "Sorry, kid, I don't have time to play this game with you - "

...And she walked right into Lestrade's badge, which he was holding at about her eye level. She stared at it, having to cross her eyes to focus on it properly. "Apologies, ma'am, but he's right. I'm Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade, and I'm going to need you and your friends to stay here, if you don't mind."

Conan felt a weight lift from his shoulders, allowing some of the tension to dissipate even as Lestrade stared at him with a carefully blank face past the woman's arm. His eyes quite clearly said, _"I'm trusting you and if this is all a false alarm I will be very cross,"_ or something to that effect.

Well, the capsule and foreign liquid in the victim's coffee cup quite clearly proved that something intentional was happening there. Whether it was poison or an allergen, he had yet to determine, so he wasn't positive of the classification front - it could be attempted murder, assault, or something else entirely. But it certainly hadn't been an accident.

So Conan gave him a thumbs up from behind the woman's back.

It...probably hadn't been her, given that once she realized what was happening she had immediately lunged for his EpiPen - but, then again, that could have just been to cover up her crime so he couldn't rule her out entirely. After all, it was entirely possible that her "freezing" had been calculated - even if she hadn't had any tells or anything that suggested that she had planned an attempt on her fiance's life, it was still possible that she - Dr. Garcia, according to her ID badge, probably about twenty-seven - was just a really good liar...

(Improbable. If he considered the state of her engagement ring - for one, she was actually wearing it on her finger in the hospital despite it likely being against policy and safety regulations. She had an empty chain around her neck that seemed to be the same silver as the ring, so that was probably where she put it when she wasn't on break. His initial point still stood, though. The ring was well cared for, and she was evidently wearing it on her finger any time she could, even if it was impractical. Rings, especially wedding or engagement rings, had a tendency to reflect the state of a marriage - therefore, it was unlikely that she was the culprit.

...Unless her potential motive was something that she had just found out about, like cheating or false identities or what-have-you. Then all bets were off.)

(Wow, he was really getting cynical, wasn't he.)

(But, still. It was important to consider every option, especially the unlikely ones.)

(As Doyle's Sherlock Holmes had said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.")

(Although...going from sixteen to six was generally pretty improbable - almost impossible, even, especially since the extra mass had to go somewhere, didn't it? But there was nothing...left over...from his initial transformation, and he hadn't needed any supplementary... _materials_...to return to his original body - which basically broke physics. The law of conservation of mass, specifically.

He'd heard KID talk about magic before - not the stage variety he had a penchant for using at heists, but mentions of a "real" witch, and honestly? He was starting to think that he'd _maybe_ been a little narrow-minded where the supernatural was concerned, because how else did the apotoxin work? Sure, an exothermic reaction kind of _vaguely_ explained the shrinking, but when he returned to his original body…)

Conan blinked hard, jostling himself out of the spiraling tunnel vision that often happened if he stumbled into an investigation sometime between when he had drunk his ( _caffeinated_ ) coffee and when it actually kicked in completely.

(Wow, he really was a mess today.)

(This was why he left the borderline magical science-y stuff to Haibara. He was perfectly content with his high-school-level chemistry skills, plus his much-higher-level knowledge of chemistry needed to solve cases. Anything more than that went straight to Haibara, unless it was some sort of concoction from a KID heist because for some reason those were almost...intuitive, for him.

Which implied that he and KID had similar thought patterns.

...He should probably be more concerned about that than he actually was.)

Conan directed his attention to the two men who had been seated opposite the victim, trying to keep his brain on track (which was gearing up to be _quite_ an undertaking, but apparently his mind just completely derailed whenever KID was even tangentially involved, so. He should probably do something about that, really, but since Sherlock was still in the morgue Conan figured he probably didn't have to worry about it just yet - especially since he was in the middle of figuring out how to _psychically solve a probable attempted murder_ when he _wasn't actually psychic_ so he should probably focus on _that_ instead of the damn cat that was Kaitou KID).

They were pretty unremarkable, honestly. Nothing was really jumping out at him, but he gave them a quick once-over just in case he'd missed anything - which, while unlikely, wasn't impossible.

Besides, the table was too wide for either of them to have been able to drop the capsule into the victim's drink unnoticed, and there hadn't been anything attached to the capsule or strange marks on the table or surrounding area that would mark a trick of some kind.

Conan blinked deliberately, focusing himself. Right, the suspects.

One was blonde with spiky hair and high cheekbones, probably of Scandinavian heritage, about twenty-eight. He liked fishing, apparently, from his tan line and the grooves in his fingers that Conan could only see because he and the other intern had come around to his side of the table in an effort to somehow help their asphyxiating friend.

(It also allowed Conan to catch a glimpse of his name tag, which read "Dr. Beck" - excellent, because calling suspects by their names was probably better than calling them Suspect #1 or #2 or whatever in his head. It also made it easier to differentiate between suspects, which was also good for obvious reasons.)

Conan kind of wondered where Beck had found a place to fish in London, but pushed that from his mind because _irrelevant._ His sleeves were slightly stained; Conan identified the substances to be peanut butter and jelly after a quick look at his abandoned sandwich, plus a bit of ranch dressing which he had apparently been using as dipping sauce for his carrots for some reason. He wore glasses with thin wire frames, and the only lines on his face seemed to be those made by laughter - which made the worried frown jarring on his face, as if he wasn't used to making his face work like that. His hands were trembling slightly at his sides.

The other man from the opposite side of the table - Dr. Sett, apparently, probably around twenty-four - was likely South Asian - possibly from Bangladesh or India, since Conan vaguely remembered hearing him speaking with an accent (he still wasn't great at identifying accents with English) during the incident earlier, calling out some sort of hospital code. He seemed pretty well put-together and clearly cared about his appearance - his beard was neatly trimmed, and even though his hair was about the same length as Genta's, he had taken the time to style it using some sort of product (not gel, though, because since Conan himself used that daily and would've recognized it - he was kind of surprised that his gel had held this long, but he was glad of it because otherwise he'd have looked eerily like his mother's teacher's kid, whom he'd only met once but once was enough of an... _event_ to cement that kid in his memory…) and Conan was pretty sure that he tweezed his eyebrows regularly but couldn't be certain from his vantage point.

He had a pair of sunglasses hanging from the collar of his scrubs, which was a bit odd until Conan spotted the slight redness of his eyes and the hardly noticeable bags under his eyes that were almost professionally obscured beneath a layer of concealer (probably? It could be foundation, but Conan still didn't really know what the difference was. The extent of his beauty product knowledge was the meager amount he'd absorbed by osmosis from the times he'd been dragged into Ran and Sonoko's Girls Nights. Regardless, the exact product didn't matter as much as the fact that the suspect was hiding a hangover with enough skill that it seemed to be a somewhat regular occurrence - or he just cared that much about his appearance, or some mixture of the two).

He also smelled good, but that was irrelevant and Conan didn't actually know why he'd noticed that. His facilities still weren't completely online yet, he supposed - wait.

Oh, right. He was still mulling over the suspicious scent from the victim's cup in the back of his mind, waiting on some sort of insight.

Conan sighed, turning to the last remaining suspect, the one who had been passing behind the woman's chair.

He...looked a bit like John, actually, though his name tag identified him as Dr. Miller. Well, maybe they didn't look _exactly_ the same. Miller was about ten years younger than John (definitely on the old side for an intern), but he had the same color hair and eyes, same hairstyle, and the same general face shape - that was the extent of their similarities, but Conan wasn't exactly used to telling white people apart outside of his English detective dramas. They both also carried some sort of weapon on their person - John had an as-of-yet undetermined type of handgun (as Conan hadn't got a good enough look at it to be able to identify the make and model, since John kept it underneath a lumpy jumper), and Miller had some kind of utility knife (which, admittedly, wasn't as blatantly a weapon as John's gun, and - going by the calluses on his hands and the polished areas of metal - Miller very rarely, if ever, used the knife part for self-defense. He'd used it to cut something recently, though, judging by the nick on one of his index fingers).

Unlike John, who wasn't actually part of the situation at this specific point in time and therefore had no emotions pertaining to the situation, Miller's face had been stuck in a genuinely perplexed expression since the victim had been carted off. He also looked almost deathly pale, to the point that Conan was considering asking one of the others to take a look at him. He coughed violently a couple times, eyes watering, and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket with an almost violently shaking hand and - oh.

 _Cherry._

 _That's_ what that smell was.

Not just any cherry, though. _Blatantly artificial_ cherry.

( _Ah, so it was like that…_ )

He had been right earlier - figuring out what the smell was had been the key to blowing this case wide open. Interestingly enough, this wasn't actually an attempted murder.

It was...hm, could he call it an accident? Well, not really.

Anyway, now he had to figure out how to tell Lestrade in a way that would make him seem psychic. Which. Probably wouldn't be all that hard, actually. As long as he could avoid cringing with embarrassment.

Conan steeled himself, closing his eyes briefly and letting out a huff of air that was somewhere between a scoff and a sigh. He was really doing this, wasn't he.

He cocked his head slightly, as if he were listening to someone on his right - where there quite clearly wasn't anyone within earshot. Once he felt Lestrade's eyes zero in on him (almost immediately, like he'd been waiting for something to happen - well, in that case, how could Conan disappoint him?), he nodded a couple times, pretending he was acknowledging something someone was saying. He allowed that to continue for a few moments before abruptly spinning on his heel and locking his eyes with Lestrade's watchful gaze. He lifted his eyebrows, making them shoot up to his hairline, and let his mouth drop open a little, feigning surprise, before quickly schooling his face into what he _thought_ would be a good approximation of a reasonably good child's poker face. (Not Poker Face, damn it, KID.)

He grinned brightly, pretending that he thought it was reaching his eyes and didn't look blatantly fake, and darted over to stand next to Lestrade, tugging at his sleeve until he crouched down so Conan could put a hand up to block his mouth as he stage-whispered into his ear, "I know who did it, Lestrade-keibu!"

Lestrade sighed. "Of course you do. Why not. It's only been a minute and a half."

Had it? It felt longer than that…

(A quick look at his watch revealed that Lestrade had actually been almost...uncannily accurate. One minute, thirty-seven seconds since Lestrade had entered the scene.)

Conan nodded enthusiastically. "Uh-huh!"

"I'm sorry, did _what_ , exactly?" the victim's fiancée demanded, narrowing her eyes.

"Do you have proof?" Lestrade asked, because apparently they were ignoring the fiancée for now.

Conan rolled his eyes, affronted. "Of course I do."

Lestrade sighed heavily, looking like he was dearly wishing that he had never crawled out of bed that morning. "Okay, go off, I guess. At least you'll probably be more polite about it than Sherlock," he muttered, as if raising his voice was too much effort.

" _Excuse me - "_

Lestrade turned to Garcia, apparently have forgotten her existence in the face of a psychic seven-year-old.

Which. Fair.

"Dr. Garcia, we - I have reason to believe that the incident involving your fiancé a few minutes ago was, in fact, intentional and premeditated."

That wasn't entirely accurate, but given the fact that Conan had only told him that he'd figured out who did it, it was understandable.

"What?!" blurted Beck, closely followed by Sett with a "How on earth - ?"

Lestrade looked like he wanted to shrug and direct questions to Conan but he clung to his professionalism. "I'm probably risking my job for this, so you'd better be sure about it," he said under his breath so that only Conan could hear.

Conan, for his part, grinned back at him and whispered ( _actually_ whispered this time), "Check the victim's cup. Also, you should probably turn on your voice recorder."

Lestrade gave him a Look but acquiesced, turning on his recorder. Good. "Go on, then." He left Conan to face the four suspects and their barrage of questions, possibly in some sort of misdirected attempt to get back at Sherlock for all the times he'd done something similar, which Conan could appreciate but also wouldn't work, so.

"The criminal is...you!" Conan declared, pointing directly at Miller, to the shock of his colleagues - and also him. Lestrade almost tripped over thin air at the abruptness of the proclamation.

(Conan frowned to himself. That sounded kind of weird in English.)

Miller spluttered. "What the hell, kid? I wouldn't try to kill Alex! He's my person! Like, if I killed someone, he'd be the one I call to move the body. So if I killed him, he wouldn't be able to help me move his body because he'd be dead!"

Beck rolled his eyes. "You stole that straight from Grey's Anatomy!"

"It's called a _reference_ , Michael, and besides, Grey's Anatomy _is_ just about the only reason I'm becoming a surgeon, so…" Miller shook his head, gesticulating wordlessly. "We've been over this!"

"No one on Grey's Anatomy ever tried to kill one of their fellow interns, though," put in Sett, narrowing his eyes at his colleague.

"But I didn't mean to - !"

Got him.

"Hey, hey, Garcia-sensei, is your fiancé allergic to anything?"

She blinked. "I don't see what that has to do with anything, but he's allergic to peanuts and acetaminophen."

Somehow, Miller's pale complexion paled even further. It seemed practically impossible, but somehow he managed it. "W-what? I didn't…"

Conan made sure his smile was still in place before he continued. "Hey, Miller-sensei...my throat is feeling kind of sore - do you have any cold medicine?"

Acetaminophen was one of the active ingredients in a fair number of cold medicines and pain relievers. The gel capsules Miller had in his pocket were no exception. Normally, that kind of capsule would take over an hour enveloped by stomach acid to dissolve enough to let the medicine enter the system, but not if someone deliberately carved out a hole in the casing, like Miller had with his utility knife - then, the medicine would be absorbed much faster.

Stomach acid's pH was usually between 1.5 and 3.5, while coffee's was around 4.5 to 5. The gel capsule that had once contained the medicine hadn't dissolved yet - they could probably still get fingerprints off it if necessary.

And, three, two, one -

"I didn't know he was allergic to it!" Miller blurted, collapsing to the cafeteria floor as his legs refused to hold his weight any longer. "You have to believe me - I thought it would just make him tired!"

Zero.

Sett inhaled sharply, eyes wide. "You mean - the kid was right?"

Miller buried his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. "I - I didn't know! I just wanted to take his ego down a few notches - so since I had some NyQuil on me today, I thought - I thought I could just put some in his drink and he'd - but I didn't know he was allergic! I wasn't trying to _kill_ him!"

Garcia leveled a frigid look at him, fists clenched at her sides. He must have felt it even without looking at her, because he quailed beneath her gaze. "Not only did you almost kill Alex," she began, sounding deceptively calm. "But even if your plan _had_ worked, you would have put all of Alex's _patients_ at risk. That's unforgivable. In my opinion, you don't deserve to be a doctor."

Miller crumpled into himself even further, openly sobbing now.

Conan sidled over to where Lestrade was photographing the capsule, since the culprit clearly wasn't going anywhere any time soon. "Do you think that's enough evidence?" he inquired politely.

Lestrade rolled his eyes. "I'd say so." He carefully plucked the remnants of the capsule out of the cup and placed it in an evidence bag and labeled it before pulling out his phone, presumably to text his partner and tell her he'd made another arrest. He took a moment to press his lips together tightly, likely restraining another exasperated sigh, then moved to cuff Miller, which broke the other three doctors out of their stupor.

"...How did you know all that, kid?" Garcia asked. Lestrade sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, preparing himself for Conan's answer.

"Oh, that's easy!" Conan decided on the spot to take a page from Ayumi's book, because the Detective Boys were the closest thing he had to examples of normal seven-year-olds. "The yuurei-san told me!"

"...Yoo Ray Sahn?"

"Yeah, the ghost that follows Garcia-sensei's future husband around. They saw the whole thing happen, so they told me 'cause I'm the only one here who can hear them." Conan pretended to misinterpret Garcia's disbelieving gaze as concerned. "Oh, don't worry, they're a nice spirit! They're only following him around because they want to thank him. Actually, they want me to ask you to take a message to him, if you wouldn't mind?" A bemused nod from Sett. "Thanks! They say that they know that he did everything that he could to save them, and it wasn't his fault that they died. They want to say 'thank you for trying to save me and I'm glad I could help you in return.'"

It was a fair assumption, since they were all a few months into their internships. It was extremely unlikely that they hadn't lost a patient. It was even more unlikely that they didn't regret it happening. So he got to supply more 'evidence' for his 'psychic abilities' and simultaneously provide a bit of comfort to the interns. Two birds, one stone, and all that.

Donovan chose that moment to make an appearance, which was good because Conan wasn't actually great at coming up with things that sounded like something a ghost would say. He was much better at paraphrasing.

She paused at the entrance, blinked twice at the scene in front of her, then continued forward until she was level with Lestrade and Conan. "Hey, boss. That's the second arrest today. You'd better watch out, or he'll put you out of a job," she greeted them, with a pointed nod at Conan.

Lestrade groaned quietly. "I can see the headlines now. ' _Police Use Psychic Child to Solve Case.'_ "

"No way, that's too many characters for a headline. It'll have to be something with more _panache_ , like ' _Police's New Consultant: Psychic Kid?_ '"

Conan groaned internally. If that ended up being in the papers, KID would definitely be focusing on him during the next heist. He'd probably end up in a miniature KID costume and holding a crystal ball or something.

Assuming, of course, that he ever ended up going to another heist. That was a sobering thought.

Nah, he was almost certain that KID would most certainly Find A Way if he felt one of his detectives could be embarrassed. He wasn't called an _international_ thief for nothing.

...Conan was really hoping that he wasn't going to be in the newspaper at all, but his luck probably wasn't that good.

...

...

Hello, it's been a while. But, you know. Finals and stuff. Ugh.  
(Instead of studying for them, I procrastinated and wrote three one shots, which you should totally go check out on AO3)  
...My search history looks weird now.


	8. Chapter 8

tw: anxiety attack/dissociation

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Things moved rather quickly after Conan's second arrest of the day. Donovon kept giving him little sideways glances, which was frankly a bit irritating, but, well. He _was_ presenting himself as a psychic. He'd be more concerned if no one thought it was strange.

There wasn't much he could do to stop her, anyway, except behave as consistently as possible.

...Which _might_ be a problem, considering that he was actually not that great at acting like _Conan_ , who was basically a mix of himself and what he assumed a six-year-old acted like, much less pretending to be _psychic_ , which he knew basically nothing about.

But, well, that could be a problem that future!him could figure out easily enough once he had access to Google again.

Probably.

No use worrying about it now, but he could probably stand to turn up the childishness a bit to throw her off track. But not too much - or, rather, not as much as he had done frequently back in Japan - because that was actually even _more_ suspicious, according to the therapist he'd seen maybe half a dozen times before the _incident_ had occurred and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his paranoia, among other things, was actually justifiable.

...Honestly, in that respect, he was more concerned about Donovan and Lestrade than he was about Sherlock, because Sherlock had no idea how children acted in the first place, so a few discrepancies here and there probably wouldn't make too much of a difference. Probably.

But, then again, he _was_ Sherlock Holmes, so one could never be too careful.

Conan didn't have to worry about it right that second, luckily enough, because Sherlock had apparently dragged John off into a taxi sometime between the doctor's arrest and subsequent escort to the police car - which presented the officers with a conundrum. Because they couldn't in good conscience leave a seven-year-old unsupervised, but they also obviously couldn't let him ride in the back with the guy who had just been arrested for attempted manslaughter for liability reasons…

Which was how he ended up sitting in DI Lestrade's lap as Sergeant Donovan drove them all to the station.

No one was particularly happy with the situation, but Lestrade took it with good humor - he had daughters about Conan's age, so he was likely somewhat used to it - while Donovan took a picture and sent it to John, entitling it ' _forget something?'_

There was no immediate reply, so they assumed he was off managing Sherlock - a job that required nearly all of his concentration at the _best_ of times, which now was...not. Because, of course, he was on a _case._

...Conan dearly hoped he was not _that_ bad when he caught the scent of a mystery, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Haibara would say differently.

Hm. He should...probably work on that, huh.

But -

 _Mysteries._

Mysteries _he_ had to solve, because the police force didn't see the _obvious_ when it was _right in front of their noses_ , much less give the victim's family any sort of closure or stop a murderer from killing _again -_

Well, maybe that wasn't quite fair. The cases he managed to get involved in generally had a tendency to get pretty weird pretty quickly, so he had to think outside the box if he wanted to uncover the truth. Which, of course, wasn't how police officers were trained - they were trained _by the book_ , which meant they had a script to follow, a procedure to go through, etc - which would be _fine_ in any _normal_ case…

(He always got the weird ones...)

High school detectives, though - they didn't have 'the best way' to survey a crime scene hammered into their heads, which meant they had the chance to be more... _flexible_ in their thinking, which made them better for strange cases. Which was probably the only reason the police allowed them anywhere near crime scenes.

Anyway.

The ride to the police station passed relatively uneventfully (in that no corpses abruptly fell from the sky), minus the quiet sobs coming from Miller in the back seat, as Lestrade pointed out interesting landmarks (which Conan honestly wasn't all that interested in, too busy trying to make his own mental map of the city) - then, once he realized Conan was only pretending to pay attention, he started talking about the places where some of his cases had been (which was _marginally_ more interesting), Donovan chiming in every now and then. Eventually, they passed a house that made them both sigh simultaneously before Donovan took the lead and started expounding the details of a case with Sherlock. Loudly. And aggressively. It seemed to be cathartic for her.

...It was a good thing that the station wasn't much further, because although Conan acquiesced that it was a decent opportunity to figure out if Sherlock's methods were mostly the same or not, he was also intimately aware of how _annoying_ Sherlock Holmes could be. He was best in small doses, really.

As if summoned by Donovan's ire, John and Sherlock appeared almost as soon as Donovan and Lestrade had dropped of Miller for processing, Conan hanging around awkwardly beside them and people-watching for lack of anything better to do. One of the beat cops was getting married, apparently. Good for her. He hoped she and her future wife were happy.

Sherlock, of course, swept in with his coat flapping dramatically (somehow more dramatic than KID, which he hadn't even thought was possible, but since Sherlock was _somehow_ being _unconsciously_ That Dramatic, he just barely managed to edge KID out). John followed behind him in an odd juxtaposition, what with his intentionally mild presence and far less pretentious outfit of jeans and a jumper.

Conan had vaguely positive feelings towards them finally showing up (honestly, who had put them in charge of a child? It was a good thing that he was actually seventeen because otherwise this would probably have gone a whole lot worse) because that meant that things were probably going to start getting interesting again. There were only so many times he could play 'guess-the-type-of-crime' before he got truly, dreadfully bored. Most of the people here were from some sort of gang, and Conan had needed to awkwardly tug on the hem of Donovan's pencil skirt (because that was all he could reach, okay - he _hated_ being short and the British were _way_ too tall) and let her know about a couple of hidden knives before things got nasty. At least that had given him some entertainment in terms of her reaming out some new recruits. One of them made the grave mistake of derisively asking who the hell she thought she was to be talking to him like that. The ensuing lecture lasted for a good five minutes, and it had been thoroughly enjoyable to watch as the new recruit slowly lost the will to live, clearly regretting his words - especially when she frisked the gang member and came up with three knives (including a nasty-looking switchblade) that the new recruit had somehow missed.

But other than that it had been pretty boring, and also now he knew way too much about the officers and their interpersonal relationships. And their sex lives. He really could have lived out his entire life without knowing _any_ of that.

Hey, maybe now that Sherlock had shown up they'd even get to see the police's list of suspects before another body dropped. That would be nice. It would get his mind off the two officers who thought that it wasn't obvious they'd just snuck off to have sex in the public toilet. Ugh, he was going to try and avoid that one if he could. Gross. Why was that even allowed.

(...it probably wasn't, but clearly people still did it anyway.)

John and Sherlock's entrance was the harbinger a short but _brutal_ reaming from Lestrade ( _" - if you're going to insist on bringing a child to a crime scene,_ please _, for the love of God,_ keep an eye on him - ") that Sherlock hardly paid any attention to, too busy staring at Donovan with a slight frown that deepened in direct proportion to the number of weapons she confiscated off the gang members headed towards processing. John, on the other hand, was faintly apologetic - but not _too_ much because he'd left Conan with Lestrade, and "honestly, you probably have a better idea of how to take care of a child, even a weird mini-Sherlock, than we do."

Lestrade sighed with the weight of a thousand cases, the way only a father of two or more children could sigh. Because John was, unfortunately, probably right. "...You could've at least _mentioned_ something about the whole 'psychic' thing."

"The...what, sorry? I - "

And that was when one of the criminals slipped the hold of a rookie officer (most likely, since not only had they been holding him incorrectly, but they had also missed the gun he was now holding) and lunged for Conan. Conan, who had assumed that the officers knew what they were doing for the most part and had therefore split the majority of his attention between Lestrade's conversation with John and Sherlock observing him carefully, was caught off guard but still tried to dodge out of the way.

He didn't quite react fast enough.

The criminal barely managed to grab his arm, but after that it was easy enough for him to twist Conan into a headlock with one arm (which, annoyingly, was large enough to not only restrict Conan's breathing but also cover his shoulders and prevent him from moving his arms) and hold a gun to Conan's head with the other.

"Let me go or the brat gets it!" he spat, eyes skittering to the door (which was currently blocked by no less than six armored officers, who reluctantly stepped back at the threat to a small child).

Conan was...kind of bored, honestly. Being held at gunpoint wasn't exactly an unusual situation for him, though usually culprits tended to go for Ayumi or Haibara because they were girls and therefore either 'cuter' (which meant the police would try harder to meet their demands - it looked worse for the police if they lost a more sympathy-inducing figure) and/or 'weaker' (because they'd clearly never met...any of the women in Conan's life).

...Hm. If he ever got back to Beika, he should really suggest to Ran that the rest of the Detective Boys could use some self defense lessons. She'd be more than happy to teach them, and it would have the added benefit of easing her worry a little.

But for now he should probably focus on the guy pointing a gun at his head.

"Aaaaah, help me, this guy has a gun," he said in the most monotonous tone he could (because this was, what, the tenth time this exact situation had happened and he really couldn't be arsed to bother pretending to be scared), before sharply kicking his heel back and nailing his captor in the balls (because he was _finally_ tall enough), which...wasn't the _smartest_ thing he'd ever done in his life, but he was a little past caring at this point. Besides, none of the officers had a clear shot since Conan's entire body was just about the perfect size to be a shield for his torso. And anyway, the criminal's finger wasn't even on the trigger - from the corner of his eye, Conan could see that it was just hovering over the guard, so, like, it wasn't as if he was in _actual_ danger.

Usually, a hard kick to that specific area would be enough to loosen the guy's hold enough that Conan could wriggle out, but although he let out a pained half-squeal-half-screech and crumpled a little bit he didn't loosen the arm holding Conan in a headlock.

Conan shrugged internally, unfazed, and followed the kick to the balls with a hard elbow to the solar plexus.

His captor wheezed, one hand going to cover the newly-forming bruise, causing him to loosen his grip just enough that Conan could free a hand to jab a knife-bladed hand into his neck. His trouble breathing gave Conan just enough leeway to jump away, twist mid-air, and deliver another kick to the underside of the guy's chin. His head snapped backwards and Conan took the opportunity to shoot one of the two needles from his watch (he was glad he - or whoever had stuck him on a plane to London - had apparently thought to bring the watch that shot three darts instead of one, even though it was a tad too unwieldy for day-to-day use) directly into his carotid artery, action hidden from the police officers behind him by his shoulders.

(He was thankful for the training Ran had drilled into him approximately three months into his stay at her house - after the third or so time he'd been held hostage or been shot at, probably? They all kind of blurred together after a while, honestly. She had taken him upstairs one evening after Kogorou had dozed off in front of his office's TV with a beer in his hand and taught him some basic self-defense, because "apparently you can't stop wandering into dangerous situations, Conan-kun! And I know it isn't your fault, most of the time - otherwise I would ask you to stop - but you really should know how to protect yourself!"

...It was less 'wandering' into situations than an inability to leave the situations he found himself in or near alone. But Ran didn't need to know that. It was better for her mental health that she think Conan just sort of got drawn into those situations.

...Conan wasn't exactly sure he could explain himself, anyway.

In any case, the short version was that, thanks to Ran, he now knew some semblance of self defense. Also, she was right - it _had_ come in handy.)

He waited the whole ten seconds it took for the needle to dissolve, making all traces of its existence disappear (minus a faint red mark that looked more like a bug bite than anything else), then used his foot to nudge his former assailant in the ribs a couple times, much to the horror of the police officers around him. Who he had kind of forgotten about, honestly, since there usually weren't any around whenever he managed to get himself used in a hostage situation. Whoops.

"It's fine," he called over his shoulder, leaning down to carefully peel back an eyelid just to make absolutely certain. "He's asleep. Unconscious," he amended, because that would make more sense to them, considering they didn't actually know about his watch (and he would very much like to keep it that way for as long as he could, thank you very much) and also he hadn't spoken very loudly at first.

He turned around to find every officer in the police station armed and ready with their weapons pointed directly at the man behind him - which was touching, actually, but he could take care of himself.

(He _could_.

No matter what KID had to say about it.

Or Haibara.

Or Ran.

Or -

...He wasn't helping his case, was he.

Hey, his record wasn't _that_ bad, considering - sure, people seemed to like shooting at him, but he'd only actually been hit, like, five times. He wasn't the one who used karate to _deflect bullets, Ran._

...That was discounting the times his mother had shot at him with rubber bullets when he'd been seven the first time around, of course...)

Conan sighed, crossing his arms. "I'm _fine -_ and since he's only going to be unconscious for approximately ten minutes, can someone just handcuff him or something." He wasn't asking as much as stating, completely done with this entire situation. He checked his mental inventory of the things in the miscellaneous 'encountering-crimes' kits in his pockets quickly, just to make sure there wasn't anything he could use to just do it himself and - yeah, nope.

"I'd do it myself, but I'm about 95% sure I'm out of zip ties right now," he added under his breath, probably not quite quietly enough. The three-day quadruple-homicide-and-attempted-suicide case that had happened right before he'd woken up in London had wiped out his supply. There had ended up being three separate culprits, one of whom was well-versed in stage magic, so he'd had to use up more than he'd been expecting.

His comment (which evidently _hadn't_ been quiet enough for the police officers nearby to dismiss) earned him a few strange glances from everybody but Lestrade (who sighed and reached for his handcuffs), Donovan (who just raised an eyebrow), John (whose expression was deliberately faintly puzzled, but his eyes were - maybe not _calculating_ , per se, but definitely _watchful_ which was going to be dangerous until Conan decided to trust him; he _really_ needed to work on his brain-to-mouth filter), and Sherlock (who looked like his birthday had come early, had he actually cared about birthdays and not immediately deleted them upon learning them - at least Conan didn't forget his own birthday _intentionally_ and he had reminders on his phone for the rest of them...which he realized said a lot about him as a person, but, well. Normal people didn't have corpses literally falling on top of them whenever their friends visited, so. He thought he should be allowed a pass on a few social niceties. Ran disagreed. He wasn't allowed a pass on social niceties).

Lestrade cuffed the guy who'd somehow managed to smuggle a gun into a police station - or, wait. Was that a police-issue pistol?

A more thorough glance than the once-over Conan had given it - enough to get _gun, loaded, safety off, ten-maybe-eleven bullets, pointed at me, shit_ \- revealed it to be a Glock 26, which was indeed the preferred weapon bestowed upon London plain clothes officers. So, either someone had been idiotic enough to let someone they'd just arrested steal their gun (which was, of course, entirely possible) or...

...someone had _let_ the person they'd just arrested steal their gun, implying that they could potentially be associated with whatever gang they'd just busted. Which was not good. And also slightly more likely, shit. Was this gang related the Black Organization? Because, if it was, this could have potentially even been an attempt on his life, which meant that he had put the entire police station in danger just by _existing_ because those _bastards_ didn't give a _damn about collateral damage_ -

 _(In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.)_

 _(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)_

 _(In for four hold for seven out for eight.)_

 _(Inforfourholdforsevenoutforeight.)_

 _(fourseveneight - )_

No. Stop. Think about it rationally.

 _Think._

How likely was it that this gang was actually connected to the Black Organization?

Not very, since they had been caught by the police. (But 'not very' didn't mean _zero_ because it was entirely possible that they just weren't as well-organized here as they were in Japan or America, hadn't encroached the top levels of the police force just yet, so… Or maybe _these_ guys were the fall guys and they'd allowed themselves to be taken in so one of their number could assassinate someone - )

That wasn't helping. Next.

 _(In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.)_

Was the Black Organization even active in England?

Probably. Almost certainly, for that matter, but it was impossible to know for certain unless he could ask Haibara, so that was a moot point, especially with the aura he'd sensed earlier. (Because, with his luck, _of course_ that aura was going to be related to the Black Organization - there was a miniscule, _infinitesimal_ chance that something else was causing it or that he was wrong, because his org-dar wasn't as quite as accurate as Haibara's.) And, anyway, if they were active _anywhere_ in Great Britain, it would have to be London -

Keep thinking. Next.

 _(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)_

Did any of the gang members act...strange before the attempted kidnapping-slash-jailbreak?

Nothing besides the dull acceptance of their fate momentarily lightened by the possibility of breaking free. Though, of course, it could always be possible that only the guy who'd attacked him had known the plan - no way to know for sure until he woke up, so -

Also not helpful. Next.

 _(In for four hold for seven out for eight.)_

His brain started moving faster than he could keep up; it was all he could do to pluck isolated words and a couple phrases from the chaotic mire, much less actually piece together what they meant.

 _(Inforfourholdforsevenoutforeight - )_

It was like trying to grasp for shredded bits of paper while the wind was actively blowing them away from him.

( _\- Organization -_

 _why...here -_

 _Vermouth could have -_

 _maybe...dead...fire -_

 _78% chance -_

 _gun -_

 _man -_

 _umbrella? -_

 _cameras saw -_

 _what was -_

 _remember -_

 _and -_

 _eleven -_

 _what about -_

 _could have been -_

 _shit -_

 _not good, not good -_

 _what if -_

 _help if -_

 _gun -_

 _Org -_

 _knife...blood and -_

 _remember -_

 _kill -_

 _black -_

 _maybe -_

 _dead if -_

 _gone -_

 _important that -_

 _and so...house with -_

 _WHY CAN'T YOU REMEMBER -_

…

…

…

 _handkerchief over nose….mouth -_

 _don't...in don't breathe -_

 _DON'T BREATHE IN - )_

" - Conan?"

Conan blinked, sluggishly identifying the sound of his name then turning his head to look at Lestrade, who was now crouching next to him (when had that happened?) and had evidently been trying to get his attention. " _Sumimasen. Doushita?"_

"...Are you okay?"

Ha. No. His brain was whirring away so quickly that all he was getting was static. But there was no reason to let Lestrade know that.

(Besides, he was _never_ fine - hadn't been since a poison that was supposed to kill him made him shrink instead.)

" _Heiki da yo, tabun,"_ he muttered, staring at the middle distance in Lestrade's general vicinity. I'm fine, probably. Which was true enough.

"Conan...I can't understand you right now, so it would be helpful if you could speak English again? There isn't anyone here who can speak Japanese - "

Conan, never one _not_ to correct people if he had the chance _(and it was safe)_ , automatically raised his arm to point at Sherlock. " _Kare ga shaberaremasu."_ He considered the other nearby police officers absently, ignoring Lestrade's belated _of course he does_ under his breath, zeroing in on one officer who seemed more interested in their conversation than the unconscious criminal and was trying to edge into hearing distance. " _Kanojo wa sukoshi dake wakarimasu."_ She understands a little.

Which, for some reason, didn't ease the furrow in Lestrade's brow - in fact, it became deeper, which was a bit odd. He should be _less_ concerned, not _more._ That was weird. Conan considered this vaguely, mind still mostly spitting white noise and static so he couldn't _think._

Then, suddenly, Sherlock was there, crouching next to him with icy eyes that were trying to peer into his soul, expression unreadable.

" _Conan-kun, ima nihongo o hanashimasu."_

Conan tried to suppress his laughter, because that accent was absolutely _horrible_ and honestly he had kind of expected better from Sherlock. He managed to keep everything but a violent twitch of his lips hidden, but it was an _effort_. Which was enough for Sherlock to figure out his reaction, probably. Well, good. That could encourage him to improve, because his accent was truly heinous, an affront to Japanese speakers everywhere.

Conan was pondering whether this was the way Hattori felt about how Conan spoke Osaka-ben when the meaning of the words Sherlock had spoken actually hit him.

 _Conan, you're speaking Japanese right now._

Oh. It...probably wasn't good that he hadn't noticed that.

Hm.

 _Compartmentalizing, compartmentalizing, not going to think about it until the case is over -_

Right. How to spin this?

Conan thought about it for two whole seconds, then could've smacked himself for taking so long because the pieces to a perfect explanation were _right there in front of his nose._

(Not one that _actually_ explained anything, of course, because even _he_ had no idea what was going on there. Which was going to be an issue later, probably, huh. Well, no time to think about it now, not while a case was happening. Denial was his best friend until then - sorry, Hattori, you've been replaced.)

(He did, in fact, realize that mostly-kind-of-postponing a panic attack by shoving all the relevant emotions into a tiny box in the back of his head until he had a chance to deal with them wasn't exactly the _healthiest_ way to go through life, thanks to that therapist he'd seen for about a month, but, well. That was what he was going to do.)

Conan had to make a concerted effort to speak in English, which probably wasn't a positive indicator of his mental state. "Oh, sorry, Lestrade-keibu! That... _happens_ sometimes when I...do the...um, thing. Thanks, Sherlock-niichan."

 _Right, be vague, pretend everyone knows what you know._

"The...thing?" Lestrade asked, right on queue.

Conan rolled his eyes, noting that his brain-body reaction time was still a little slower than he'd like - something he'd probably need to account for later, if his absolutely _abysmal_ luck held. "Yes, you know, the _thing._ The...um, the 'I just did' thing." Shit, why was he forgetting grammar rules now?

"...You mean, defending yourself against a criminal? Is that what you mean? It's okay - "

Conan heaved a sigh that sounded like it weighed more than Sherlock's ego and waved a hand dismissively (though it was more of a flop than a wave, which was...not great). "No, no, by now, that, I am... _used_ to. It. I'm used to it." He ignored Lestrade's strangled _what_ and continued. "No, the... _head_ thing is what I mean."

(His words weren't coming as easily as they should be, either. He had to actively translate the words he wanted to say from Japanese to English, which he hadn't had to do for years. That also wasn't fantastic, but it sure was a thing that was happening. Great. It wasn't an immediate threat to his cover story or anything.)

(Wait. What was he thinking? Why would - )

Conan was ripped from trying to puzzle his way through the static that was located solidly between him and his long term planning by Lestrade asking, "What do you mean by 'the head thing'?"

Which was a fair question. What _did_ he mean by 'the head thing'? He'd had it just a minute ago - ah. Right, the psychic thing.

Why was he pretending to be psy - oh, right Sherlock. Who was crouched next to him, at a good height to read the nuances of his expressions, staring at him intently and _wow_ , how had Conan missed _that_.

He cleared his throat, begging his brain to work properly again, but to no avail. "The criminal, I made him sleep. Sometimes...my head, that... _messes_ with it."

Lestrade blinked, but seemed to consider accepting that as a logical explanation after a moment. But not before asking a few more questions, because he _was_ a police officer, and he probably hadn't become Detective Inspector by taking everything at face value. "You... _made_ him sleep? How?"

Conan appreciated Lestrade's concerted effort to use basic vocabulary and simple grammar structures because apparently it was clear he was having issues with English right at that moment in time. He didn't really have the mental capacity to deal with longer words currently. He'd _really_ like it if that could just _stop_ , please. He took a moment to get a portion of his thoughts together before he answered. "Um...in my head, colors. There are colors. And they are...feelings? So I, um, at him... _threw_ them. I threw them at him. Lots of feelings. So he fell to sleep."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed as he observed the conversation, following the words with his eyes as if he could see them.

Lestrade nodded slowly, eyes half-closed as he puzzled through Conan's admittedly lackluster explanation. "So, you used your psychic powers to make him sleep. And making people sleep can mess up your head."

"Right! That's what I meaned. Meant. Sorry." Ugh, English was _stupid_.

...Also, know what was weird? That _Sherlock_ , of all people, had _flinched_ subconsciously at the word 'psychic' and then his eyes had immediately darted towards John, seemingly just to give him a quick once-over, before realizing what he'd done and forcing his body language back to 'neutral but interested.'

...What the _hell_ had that been about?

Conan filed it away to think about later, because if he was having trouble speaking _English_ he clearly wasn't in any shape mentally to be worrying about somewhat insignificant details, even if they _did_ involve Sherlock Holmes.

"Wait, you mentioned that before -" Conan jumped, because he had _not_ heard John coming up behind him and that could _not_ be good for his nerves, already on the brink of snapping as they were. "Something about 'psychic powers,' you said?"

Lestrade sighed, placing one hand on his hip and looking like he could use a long nap. "Yeah, you could have _mentioned_ that before running off after Sherlock - would've been useful to know."

John blinked, bewildered. "But - we - " He shot a glance at Sherlock, who didn't do anything except blink at him like a rather large cat, but apparently that was enough for John to roll his eyes and retcon what he'd just said. " - sorry, _I_ had no idea about anything... _psychic._ What made you think that, by the way?" He was clearly trying _not_ to sound judgemental, but it really wasn't working. Like, at all.

"Well, how else would you explain - " And then Conan didn't hear anything else because something in his brain _clicked_ and he stopped processing what was happening outside his head for a minute because _wait._

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

That guy...couldn't have been part of the Black Organization. One of their operatives...would have been prepared. Even if he'd only been a hired grunt. Especially if it _had_ been a hit.

The guy holding a gun to his head - he would have dodged the sleeping dart (or maybe it wouldn't have had an effect on him at all, like Gin) if he had been in any way remotely related to the Black Organization.

Because the Black Org was actually _competent._

Huh.

That was the first time he'd ever been glad about that.

Conan sighed, shoulders loosening abruptly. He hadn't even realized they'd drawn up to his ears, more taut than the muscles in Ran's arms when she was about ready to hit Kogorou over the head for drinking too much.

The panicky static that had been obscuring the better half of his brain receded.

And then he heard -

"Oh, _that's_ where I recognized him from!" exclaimed the female officer Conan had identified earlier as knowing a minimal amount of Japanese, because the universe had decided that he _clearly_ needed something else to stress about right that very second, _right_ after he'd finally got his head on mostly straight again. "He's - oh, what did he call himself, um..right! Doyle's apprentice! Something like that."

"...sorry, who?" asked John, after exchanging a brief, unreadable glance with Sherlock, who was still crouched next to Conan and watching his every micro-expression. If he hadn't modeled his 'too absorbed in my head to pay attention to things around me' mask after KID's Poker Face (because, well, who else?), he might have been worried.

The female officer looked a tad embarrassed - Officer Kim, her name tag read. "Remember the kid who interrupted Minerva Glass's last match at the Wimbledon finals and said he'd help her? We all thought he was just being a silly kid, but then it turned out that Minerva's mother was holding a bomb, I think it was, and we'd also been getting complaints about some kid wearing a bow tie and glasses using a rocket-powered skateboard to get around London finding clues of something. There was some author who took all the credit for figuring out about the bombing, though, and then the kid disappeared off the face of the earth afterwards."

"What, really? I thought you'd made him up, but I think I remember seeing him at some point..."

Lestrade sighed. "Normally, I'd say that was complete bull, but he's had me make two arrests today, each in under a minute - sorry, three now, I guess. And there was that whole thing about the fake bio-terrorism. And the International Criminal wanted by Interpol. The whole 'might have stopped a bombing' thing isn't even much of a surprise at this point... _Was_ that you?" he asked, directing the question at Conan.

Had he been more aware of what was going on, he would've done something other than laugh nervously. But the female officer had been talking too fast for him to process right at that moment, even _with_ his newly regained brain space, and her accent certainly wasn't helping - Geordie, maybe? So he'd kind of...tuned out of the conversation (clearly not the best idea he'd ever had) and thus had no idea what Lestrade was asking. So. Nervous laughter it was, while he rewound the conversation in his head so he could play it through more slowly.

...Wimbledon? Oh, right, the strangely Greek-themed bombing with the Sherlockian clues. Apollo and Minerva Glass. Hades Sabara. Right.

"Um...kinda?" was his extremely intelligent answer.

Lestrade sighed deeply. "I don't know why I thought I'd be surprised."

.

.

.

.

.

sorry this chapter's a bit late

also my space bar is half broken so that's fun


	9. Chapter 9

Either Sherlock hadn't known about the bombing/murder attempt or he'd deleted it, because his face went curiously blank for a split second before he wordlessly unearthed his phone from one of his inside pockets and typed something in rapidly. John shifted a step or two closer so he could watch over Sherlock's shoulder. His eyebrows twitched and gradually crept higher as Sherlock continued scrolling.

(There was still a thread of panic coursing through his veins just underneath his skin, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

...For the lowest threshold of 'handle,' that was.

Mainly he was just trying to ignore the fact that he'd maybe-possibly-kinda been on the verge of an anxiety attack ten minutes ago.

Denial, denial, denial, that had always been his strategy for dealing with his mental health.

It had been working pretty well so far.

The therapist he'd seen for approximately a whole five sessions would probably disagree, though.)

Lestrade sighed. "Of course you don't remember one of the biggest news stories in years. I shouldn't have expected anything different from either of you."

John had apparently taken a quick look at the dates, because he said, mild as could be, "I think I was still in Afghanistan then."

Lestrade winced apologetically but didn't say anything, because, well, what could you say to that that wouldn't have you coming across as a complete tosser?

(Heh. British slang was fantastic.)

...Speaking of which, Conan was almost completely sure that John had tucked his service revolver back underneath the hem of his jumper before coming to stand beside Sherlock, and he was equally certain that he was _not_ supposed to have kept it after he'd been invalidated home (presumably, of course, from the whole shoulder wound thing and the fact that field doctors were always in high demand unless they were physically unfit for duty).

But, well. If no one else was mentioning it and John had kept it so well-hidden that he'd managed to nearly fool _Conan_ , then he wasn't going to say anything about it. Besides, anyone who was usually within two meters of Sherlock needed _some_ sort of an edge on their adversaries (because _of course_ they would have adversaries) and a gun in the hands of a man who knew how to use it was as good as anything...

Especially since detectives like them had a tendency to get themselves into...sticky situations, no matter their intelligence or apparent age. It really was for the best that anyone who spent any substantial amount of time around them had an advantage - like Ran had her karate and Haibara (he was pretty sure) constantly wore a ring that functioned as a taser.

(Not that she'd ever broadcasted it - half for the element of surprise, half because if the rest of the Detective Boys knew she had a gadget like that, they would demand they also get one each. And, to be honest, not he nor Haibara nor Agasa-hakase trusted them with enough electricity to stun an adult. Maybe, _maybe_ enough to stun a child, so if they accidentally used it on each other they would be most likely be just fine, but then it would be practically useless in terms of its originally intended function. They'd basically just be one of those buzzer ring things Genta had got from some _gachapon_ \- he'd then tricked Ayumi into shaking his hand, she'd been shocked, and then there was screaming and the silent treatment, and his point was that giving the kids taser rings was a _terrible_ idea, okay. Because it would be a toss up as to whether Agasa-hakase actually remembered to tinker with the rings' voltage before giving them to the kids and that was an accident just _waiting_ to happen.

...He was _so glad_ KID had adjusted his taser at the kirin heist to be on the low side, even for a kid - Conan had a feeling he was thinking 'better safe with an unaffected tantei-kun than sorry with a seizing tantei-kun' - because otherwise he might have started having heart palpitations or even, well, dying. As it was, he'd blacked out for a split second, because being hit from _that close_ even with a low-grade blast was _bad_.

Haibara had held it together until the kids had left, but then he'd been frantically forced into an _extremely_ thorough medical examination because apparently changing back and forth between his child form and his true age had left him with a strained heart - which made sense, considering the amount of pain he was in when he changed, especially in the chest area - and a possibly compromised immune system, both of which made him more susceptible to...complications.

Which, you know, probably would have been good to know _before_ he got tased.

But, in any case, if Haibara didn't trust Kaitou 'I will actively make sure no one gets hurt at my heists even if it might prevent me from escaping with my prize' KID with less than half the charge needed to stun an adult, she _certainly_ wouldn't trust three _actual_ kids with it, especially when there was a chance they might accidentally use it on each other - or worse, Conan.)

(...He should probably let KID know about Haibara's grudge the next time they saw each other.)

(...and maybe about his potential heart condition.)

Anyway. John had a gun, which, while probably not precisely legal, was good for someone who was consistently near a detective with little to no self preservation.

"...Interesting." Sherlock glanced up from his phone to meet Conan's for a split second before his gaze flitted over to John briefly, then fixed onto the woman who'd spoken earlier - Officer Kim. "You said he interrupted the Wimbledon finals?"

"Yeah, Demeter Bauer versus Minerva Glass. I'm a big fan of Demeter, so I took the day off when I managed to get tickets to see the match in person! It was a super cool match-up; Demeter's got this incredibly fast serve, over 120 mph, I think, and Minerva does this strange super high toss on her serve which makes it difficult to figure out where it's headed. Her serves for that match were kind of weird, though…" She trailed off, seemingly wracking her brain for what would've made her think so, but shrugged it off when she couldn't come up with an answer immediately. "Anyway, this little kid in a suit and bow tie interrupted the match and shouted "I'll help you!" and then something about being Arthur Conan Doyle's apprentice. He got scolded for interrupting, then the match continued as usual. Minerva was suddenly playing much better and she ended up winning. There were rumors about an assassination attempt on her mother, though, and something about some author stopping a bombing. I thought they might have been connected to the complaints we'd been getting about the 'well-dressed foreign boy zooming around the city, somehow breaking Mach 1 on a skateboard,' is all." She shrugged.

Sherlock nodded slightly, as if confirming something. Which was weird, because Kim hadn't really said any new information.

...Sherlock was being...oddly quiet today, wasn't he?

That was probably not good. It meant he was gearing up for something big - probably to do with Conan, not the case, with his luck.

Or -

He _was_ looking a little strange, though...

His cheekbones were more pronounced - which was saying something because they were usually sharp enough to cut glass - and he was...paler, gaunter. Under his jacket, he was almost stick-thin, like he hadn't been eating much, if at all - which, to be fair, _was_ normal for Sherlock, but even so….

(No, he did _not_ just think that maybe someone had replaced Sherlock bloody Holmes with a doppleganger - his paranoia really needed to shut the hell up.

…He _would_ know if it was Vermouth or his mother, or even KID, _right?_ He'd be able to tell - )

Before he could work himself up into a panic again (because he was _this close_ ), he was being ushered away into Lestrade's office because someone probably realized, _hey, maybe we shouldn't have the kid who just somehow knocked out his attacker right next to the place where he was possibly dissociating, that sounds like a good idea._

Which, well.

They weren't exactly _wrong._

Lestrade shut the door behind Sherlock and John, Donovan having apparently volunteered to escort the guy who'd tried to hold Conan hostage to holding.

(...Conan had a feeling that the guy would probably have a few more 'accidental' bruises by the time they arrived.)

He picked up a stack of files from his remarkably well-organized desk and flipped through them quickly before facing Conan and the others. John and Sherlock were still standing, John at parade rest because he was still on edge and Sherlock doing some sort of over dramatic trench coat pose that Conan had no idea how to describe in Japanese, much less in English. Conan, on the other hand, had helped himself to one of the seats in front of Lestrade's desk, because maybe he was a little unsure of how much longer his legs could hold him up. He kicked them back and forth idly to obscure their minute shaking.

"Right, so. Three arrests by a six-year-old later - "

"I'm seven!" Conan cut in, petulant expression pasted on his face, because apparently he had to keep reminding people (and focusing on his cover and whatever Lestrade was about to say - probably something to do with Maria's case, given the way his posture and tone of voice had changed just slightly - was a good way to stop his brain from spiraling into a panic. Because he was somewhat understandably still on a hair-trigger, just a couple wrong words away from shutting down completely, and he probably would be that way for the foreseeable future since he was stuck in London, alone, with no way to contact anyone - _shit_ , the case, focus on the case...).

" - right, sorry, seven-year old." Lestrade paused and made a weird face, like he wasn't sure what to think of that as he muttered " _Seven!"_ under his breath before shaking his head and raising his voice to address the rest of the group. "Anyway, I have the guest list from the Reynolds' party as well as their statements, alibis - not that any of them really have any, other than the CCTV cameras since they were all driving to their homes or to pick up their kids - and a bit of background on each of them and their families. We've already ruled out the neighbor, Bradley Greene, thanks to Conan and his apparent psychic abilities - "

"Sorry, _what._ " From John. Who said it quietly enough that it could be easily ignored, which was a mistake, because it was.

" - so other than the parents, who Conan's Psychic Powers - " Lestrade's eyes glinted mischievously as he slightly emphasized the words, almost certainly to aggravate John and Sherlock, the latter of whom had been oddly quiet. Even though John's reaction probably wasn't as much about the whole 'psychic' thing, since he was pretty sure they'd been over that already, as it was the 'ruled out thanks to the child' thing. " - tell him probably didn't kill their daughter, these eight are our suspects."

He very happily ignored the strangled noise coming from John's direction, glancing down at the stack of files he was holding.

"Okay, first we have the file of Lucy Collins, 35, lawyer, single, no ex-spouse or ex-anything, apparently. She had her daughter, Delilah, via in vitro with an anonymous donor. She was very specific about that, for some reason. They participate in pageants with the Reynolds."

Conan glanced through the file Lestrade had absently handed him, memorizing it quickly before handing it off to Sherlock, who did the same before passing it to John.

There wasn't really anything too interesting in the file, sparse as it was - which made sense, since she _was_ a lawyer and they didn't tend to talk to the police if they could help it - except that she'd once defended the Reynolds pro bono in court. That could be important.

"Then there's Larry and Carla Stevens, forty-year-old mechanic and forty-two-year-old graduate student respectively. They have three kids - Antonio, Angela, and Alena; the two girls are both in pageants, but apparently the Reynolds 'politely requested' that Angela not come anywhere near Maria because there was some sort of altercation a week or so ago. They declined to give more details, so we'll have to work on that."

Their file was at least three times as thick as Lucy Collins', given that there were two witnesses and five family members. Angela and Alena were twins, both ten, while their brother was five. Larry had been arrested twice for assault, but had only made it to holding before being let out. And, from what he remembered, that wasn't as big a deal here as it was in the U.S… Carla, on the other hand, had a spotless record - not even a parking ticket. The kids had been at their grandmother's the night before to give the parents a chance to go socialize with the other pageant parents. The couple had left the party early to pick up their kids - because as much as the grandmother enjoyed spending time with them, they were very energetic and she was recovering from a recent knee surgery...which Larry and Carla had also paid for.

...Larry must be an incredibly good mechanic if they were able to afford a surgery and _two_ pageant girls as well as graduate school on a single person's income. Hm. A look into their financials might be in order...who knows, maybe someone had ordered a hit on Maria.

(Extremely unlikely, given the amateurish nature of the scene ( _and also who ordered hits on pre-pubescent beauty queens?_ ), as well as the fact that whoever had killed her had left behind a number of clues. It was almost as if -

 _Oh._

This was probably the first crime they'd ever committed.

That was...a distinct possibility that should probably be looked into.

Hm. Later. When he wasn't in the middle of a run down of the suspects.)

"Next are Callum and Anisha Peters, a thirty-seven-year-old investment banker and thirty-five-year-old shopkeeper, with two kids named Neil and Emma. Emma is a little older than Maria but they still compete in the same category. Neil is a few years older than her. None of the parents had any complaints about them, except that Neil spends too much time on his phone - but, then again, he _is_ a teenager…"

What Lestrade had failed to mention was that Callum had been convicted twice for assault and battery about fifteen years ago. He'd completed the required anger management classes, though, and seemed to have mellowed out since then.

The shop Anisha was working at had been robbed at gunpoint a few weeks ago while she was on shift, and the owner's interview in the file sort of implied that perhaps she had let it happen. Her position at the shop had been tenuous since then.

(The interview also implied that the owner was a xenophobic dick, even though Anisha had been born in the UK, so Conan wasn't going to take that testimony at face value.)

Neil was sixteen, just old enough to have a provisional driving license. He appeared to own some sort of motorbike, which had been pulled over once for - speeding, probably? The officer's handwriting wasn't great and English wasn't his first language.

Emma was usually the runner up in pageants, right behind Maria.

"After that, we have Wendy and Siobhan Armstrong, a thirty-five-year-old police officer from a few districts over and a thirty-three-year-old nurse respectively, with one daughter named Jade. Siobhan's an immigrant, but her papers are all in order. They're getting married in a few weeks, and they've invited everyone from the party last night to the reception. They're very excited about it and are purportedly 'pulling out all the stops.' I think they mentioned something about a bouncy castle for the kids..."

So they seemed to be on good terms with everyone at the party, including the Reynolds - though it would probably be best to double check that. The officer who'd interviewed them _probably_ wouldn't have missed any animosity, but, then again, it wasn't as if he wasn't used to them not being able to see clues that were right under their noses.

(Police officer meant _probably_ not the culprit, but corrupt cops _were_ a thing, so…

Best not rule out anything yet.)

Then, of course, there was the whole 'wedding-and-reception' thing, which had to be expensive if they were 'pulling out all the stops.' A nurse and a police officer weren't exactly the highest-paying jobs out there...

"And, lastly, we have Harry Shumaker, an American stay-home single dad, thirty-three. He's the heir to some big oil company in Texas, but after he inherited it he turned the company into the forerunner of the U.S. green energy industry...then moved here, for some reason, possibly to do with our paparazzi laws. His papers all seem in order, including the adoption papers for his son Dave. Who saw a beauty pageant on the telly and decided he, quote, 'needed to win that.' His father apparently registered him the next day, since there technically aren't any rules against boys competing. They're both purportedly well-liked in the pageant circle, despite some mild animosity initially. It probably helps that they're insanely wealthy and willing to foot the bill for the post-pageant feast - "

Conan was having vivid flashbacks to when his mother had tried to force him to enter a pageant. Luckily (...for the smallest value of the word), they'd run into three separate, unrelated corpses on the way to pick up whatever costume she'd been going to make him put on. Apparently, that had convinced his mother that the universe didn't want him to become a pageant queen (king?). Thus, his career as a potential pageant winner lasted approximately seven hours and not even one costume (unless he counted the hazmat suit he'd been forced into for the second case), much less a contest.

He barely managed to suppress a shudder. He had _no_ idea why _anyone_ would subject themselves to competing in pageants voluntarily - just listening to his mother ( _rant_ ) list all the things they would've had to do to get him ready for a competition was enough to give him nightmares for _years._

...but if that kid actually _wanted_ to do pageants, then...more power to him, Conan supposed.

But - right, the files.

They were...sparse. Which he guessed was understandable, considering only two of them had any sort of police record.

(Though - it _had_ been six hours since the body had initially been found. He'd have thought that Scotland Yard would have had an intern or a beat cop scrolling through their social medias or something - oh, right, the gang raid would've picked up any idle hands, wouldn't it.)

Fine. But that meant that he needed to do some more investigating - specifically into the suspects' finances, but also into the relationships within the group because there was quite clearly _something_ going on there that wasn't in the files and he wasn't going to get an answer without personally observing -

"...I wanna go see them," Conan announced abruptly, cutting off the conversation going on over his head that he _probably_ should've been listening to. And here he'd thought the coffee had finally kicked in. Was British coffee weaker than his preferred brand? Hm, well - to be fair, he _did_ get it from a hospital cafeteria. It probably wasn't very good, especially if the doctors had their own coffee pot in the break room or something - oh. No wonder it had tasted so shitty; it had probably been _instant_ coffee, ugh, and that meant it would probably be wearing off soon. That was unfortunate - he'd need to find some other way to get some _good_ coffee soon. Y'know, before his 'elaborate disguise' completely failed him.

"What? Why do you need to see them?"

 _Why do you think, Detective? And here I thought you were halfway decent at your job…_

Well, maybe that wasn't fair. He _was_ dealing with a purportedly psychic kid who was also a crime magnet and had solved three cases in the whole four or so hours Lestrade had known he'd existed (...possibly 'solved' wasn't the best way to put it, since one 'case' had been resolved by kicking a criminal in the face and another hadn't _technically_ been a case so much as Conan not wanting to let a pedophile exist without being arrested…).

" 'Cause I wanna know if they killed Maria-chan." Conan gave him a Look (modeled after Sherlock's, complete with rolled eyes) that said _Obviously_.

"If you're truly psychic, shouldn't you be able to tell from the pictures?" That was Sherlock, thinking he sensed weakness in Conan's claims, but the joke was on him because Conan had already come up with an excuse.

Conan projected as much petulance as possible, basing his expression on Genta's when he learned there wasn't any _unajuu_ on the menu at a restaurant and throwing in a hint of Ayumi when she thought Conan was purposely hiding a case from them. "It doesn't _work_ that way. I gotta see them in person because people feel different than their photos. You can't get feelings from a photo. And sometimes it's places that are important, not people, and that's even _harder_ to tell from pictures - !"

Lestrade sighed heavily, because clearly he did not get paid enough to deal with all this. He deserved a raise as much as Megure did and was about as equally likely to get it. "Yes, of course, I don't know what we were thinking. Why not. Let's all go talk to some potential murderers with the psychic six-year-old - "

"I'm seven," Conan reminded him, as if that were the only important part of what Lestrade was saying. He knew he was short for his (apparent) age, but this was really getting ridiculous.

"Right, because that year makes so much difference," John muttered under his breath.

"It does too!" Conan stomped his foot on the ground and crossed his arms, feeling a tiny piece of his soul disintegrate, as was normal when he had to act childishly.

(He wondered morbidly just how much of his soul he had left at this point.)

"Yeah? How much, then?" John asked, smiling bemusedly like he was humoring Conan.

Well. If he was going to be like that...

"About four hundred murders, probably!"

John choked on his spit, because Conan had timed his announcement to be exactly when John was about to swallow out of pure vindictiveness - because he had picked up a few things about being petty from the reigning queen of pettiness, Haibara. John coughed violently for a whole five seconds, then croaked, "...what."

Conan shrugged, pretending not to know it was strange that he ran into approximately four cases per week if he were lucky, most of which were murders. He was, in fact, acutely aware that it was neither normal nor fair, and didn't usually happen to the other teenage detectives - well, maybe there was that rumour about Hakuba being drawn into jewel thefts, but, one, that was theft and not murder and thus usually less traumatizing, and, two, it only happened once every few months, just enough to be remarked upon, instead of _every damn day._

 _(In for four, hold for seven, out for eight.)_

Anyway. For Hakuba, it seemed more like bad luck or wrong-place-wrong-time - or would it be right-place-right-time, since he was a detective and usually managed to arrest the thief? - than Conan's strange proclivity for attracting dead bodies to his immediate vicinity.

(Wow, he'd never wished he was Hakuba before. That was...a strange sensation.

...He was never mentioning this to Hattori.)

Conan blinked back to the present before opening his eyes wide and projecting all the innocence he could muster (which was mostly stolen from Ayumi's expressions, if he was being honest with himself, and maybe a little of what he could remember of Ran's from when they were kids) before elaborating. "Well, four hundred cases, I guess. Not all of them are murders, but most of them are. Um. Were. I guess. Whatever. That's how many cases I - _helped_ solve last year. Besides, I already talked to Maria's parents back when you thought they were suspects and that was _fine_ so I don't understand why - "

"You let him do _what?!_ "

"You no longer think the Reynolds are the primary suspects?" And there was Sherlock's attention focused completely on him again, instead of only mostly. Great. Why was he doing this to himself again?

"I did not _let him_ do anything," Lestrade stated, ignoring Sherlock for John's rather more reasonable reaction. Sherlock didn't seem to mind, for once content to not have someone's attention on him - probably because he was also interested in Lestrade's answer. "He sprinted up the stairs and almost ran right into them as they were coming back from the police station, which was...suspiciously good timing, now that I think about it. You..." He raised his eyebrows abruptly as a thought occurred to him, gaze drifting to land fixedly on Conan. "...you knew they were there, didn't you."

It wasn't a question, but Conan beamed like he was ecstatic someone was taking his (bullshit) psychic story seriously instead of dying a little on the inside. He'd brought this on himself, so there was no one to blame but him.

"...mmmmmaybe," he responded, possibly a bit belatedly.

"You do realize how dangerous that was." Lestrade wasn't asking, but he also didn't seem to be expecting any sort of (reasonable) reply, so Conan just blinked up at him, keeping his eyes wide. Lestrade sighed deeply, rubbing the bridge of his nose like he was trying desperately to stave off a headache. Poor guy. Conan sometimes gave himself a headache just by virtue of _existing_ , so he could imagine the pain. He'd felt it enough times.

Conan shrugged a moment later when it was clear Lestrade was going to continue wallowing in despair until someone started making sense, mindful of Sherlock's gaze resting on him deliberately and resisting the urge to squirm because that wouldn't make things any better. "Maria-chan said she's pretty sure that her parents didn't kill her, but I had to make sure, you know?"

"No, I _don't_ know - what, why?"

" 'Cause sometimes people lie." He hadn't meant to sound as profound as it had, but, well, that was what had happened. "Sometimes it's for a good reason, because they want to protect someone, because they don't understand what's happened, because they don't understand why someone would do something like that, because they don't remember what happened but they're absolutely _positive_ no one in their life would _ever_ do something like that - "

He paused, taking a deep breath before he could get himself too worked up.

( _In for four, hold for seven, out for eight._ )

"...Sometimes people lie."

.

.

.

.

.

yeah, I'm not going to even TRY transcribing a geordie accent, damn. It'd be unrecognizable to native English speakers and also I still don't like how Hattori's accent happened...I might need to go back and change that...we'll see

...also I may need to move around some chapters because they may be in the wrong order


	10. Chapter 10

Kaito sighed, stretching his arms over his head. He wasn't particularly fond of traveling by plane, but it was convenient at times. Getting his magic supplies through security was a nightmare, though. Well, the alternative was traveling by boat and that was just...not going to happen. Ever. For obvious reasons. Assuming he could help it, of course, but he'd had a decent enough track record thus far.

He lived in hope.

He drew a few confused and wary gazes when he picked up his checked bags from the conveyor belt, likely mostly because he had three of them and they were all brightly patterned, vibrant and chaotic enough that they all clashed with each other. He probably made for quite a sight. But no one stared for longer than an extra moment or two, because he wasn't _that_ interesting compared to some of the more notorious fashion designers who tended to hang around France, not to mention the more boisterous tourists - especially the Americans.

He absolutely _loved_ Paris.

And not just for how easy it was to fade into the crowd, even when he was doing something on the slightly less legal side of things.

A dramatic snap and a puff of smoke later, all his suitcases had combined into one massive roller bag, somehow a sedate plaid instead of some mixture of the other patterns, and easy enough to start pulling behind him as he left the airport.

Kaito loved magic. Even more than he loved Paris.

For one, it was practical. He no longer had to figure out a feasible way to drag three relatively large suitcases, plus a backpack and a shoulder bag, around the uneven sidewalks of Paris (assuming, of course, that the roads even _had_ sidewalks) until he got to the small apartment where his mother lived while she was there. Instead, he only had one (admittedly sizeable) suitcase with wheels, which was far less unwieldy.

For another, people's faces when they saw him do the seemingly impossible were...satisfying, he supposed was a good enough word. Children had the best reactions, because they stared with wide, sparkling eyes and open mouths, tugging on their parents' sleeves and pointing wildly - except, of course, Meitantei, who very rarely acted his age, but Kaito supposed that's what he got for being a detective.

And, you know, running into all those murders probably didn't help.

(Seriously. Meitantei _had_ to be cursed or something.)

Adults, on the other hand, tried their best to look unimpressed, because they were under the dreadfully mistaken impression that being an 'adult' meant cutting themselves off from anything remotely _fun_ or _entertaining_ since it didn't fit with their aesthetic - Kaito could go on a rant about it for hours, almost as long as his rants on detectives or Arsène Lupin, so it was best not to let himself get started - but Kaito, well-versed in reading people, could usually spot the glimmer of excitement or interest they had tried to stifle. It was one of his favorite things to do, fanning that spark.

Detectives, on the other hand - the third hand, he conceded, but that wasn't much of an issue for any magician worth their deck of cards - they got their own category, because he couldn't possibly mix them in with the rest of the populace. Adult detectives were...mostly the same as civilian adults, in his experience, though more disillusioned and on the skeptical side. Except for that one guy in Gunma. He was a little out there. Well, the exception proved the rule, and all that.

Teenage detectives, however, as annoying as they were (and no, Kaito had _not_ forgotten Meitantei's slip-up the last time they'd met face-to-face, but he was still working on processing what it could potentially mean), were also more intriguing by far than any other category. High school detectives got this glint in their eyes, like they had a compulsion to unravel every last thread of whatever trick he'd thrown at them that had been physics-defying enough to pique their interest. Like they _had_ to deduce _everything,_ and they couldn't stop themselves from picking a trick apart, even if they wanted to pause to enjoy the awe washing over them.

Kaito kind of felt bad for them. They physically _couldn't_ enjoy the majesty and wonder of magic, too busy trying to tear through the mystery.

Meitantei, though…

Of course Meitantei didn't fit neatly into any category.

Of course not. That would mean that he made _sense_.

Nothing about him made anything remotely approaching sense.

( - like his 'high school detectives' slip, the fact that murder nipped at his heels like a stray dog, how he seemed uncomfortable in large crowded spaces even though he hid it well, how he immediately knew Kudou Shinichi was KID whenever he disguised himself as him, how he oscillated from "...and that's how the murderer did it - that must've been an incredibly gruesome way to go" to "that's what Shinichi-niichan told me!" within half a second, from serious and solemn to flustered and childish quicker than a sleight-of-hand - )

(There was something he was missing; there had to be. It was on the tip of his tongue…

But it wasn't like he was a detective, so it was probably going to remain elusive, flitting about just out of reach, for a while longer.)

Meitantei got the glint of "must-figure-out-the-trick" just like all the other detectives did, but for some reason once he figured it out, he was content keeping the answer to himself.

He had the drive, the unceasing urge to _know_ things, but he didn't feel the need to broadcast what he'd learnt unless it was absolutely necessary to someone's immediate survival. Kaito had read his witness statements from after every heist (the locks on the filing cabinets in Nakamori's office were remarkably easy to pick) and in each and every one of them (bar the first, for some reason, which was as frighteningly detailed as his murder witness statements - Kaito had maybe picked the locks of more than one filing cabinet, but he'd been curious, sue him), Meitantei had been incredibly vague about the actual mechanics of the magic, even though he'd explained them directly to KID himself not even an ten minutes before. And not just the heists where they'd worked - if not necessarily _together_ , then in tandem. All of the ones after the first - which was eerily accurate - and maybe a couple immediately afterwards - which were a strange mix of textbook and overly simplistic with a few dashes of blatant misdirection, like Meitantei was trying to get the hang of giving away just enough to excuse his actions and no more - were masterful obfusticating and didn't really actually say anything of import. Probably the only reason he'd gotten away with it was because he was a child, even though most of the police force almost certainly knew he was smarter than a kid his age should be. Or at least Division One did.

(The lack of that drive to _figure things out_ during the last heist had been so unsettling that it'd been the deciding factor in his loitering on the roof afterwards. It was disconcerting enough that he probably would have hung around even if the snipers _had_ shown up, which was...something he didn't have time to unpack just now.)

(...yeah, so he liked the brat, what of it.)

In any case, magic was great and Meitantei's reactions to it blatantly _refused_ to fit into any category, which was both intriguing and vaguely annoying...which was also a pretty good description of him in general, actually. Interesting, but in a faintly exasperating way.

Kaito traveled the streets, not purposely attracting attention - so it didn't look like he was trying to make himself seen (and therefore an obvious timestamp) - but also not redirecting it, making it seem like he was sneaking around. People would remember him, maybe, but only his absent one-handed card tricks and massive plaid suitcase, not his face. It was a delicate balance, sure, but it was also something he had perfected years ago.

It didn't take long to find his mother's apartment, but that was only the case because he'd been there before and had been shown the path by his mother - once a Phantom Thief, always a Phantom Thief. He was actually almost certain that the reasonably-sized flat was left over from her days as the Phantom Lady, since he'd never actually seen the other tenants despite it being a three-storey building. Then again, he'd only been there a total of four or five times, and at least one of those times was so long ago that he hadn't yet trained his mind to study all the people he met. So, something like six years old. He was pretty sure there was a photograph from that time hanging somewhere in the apartment with the date written on the back, so he could check there later if he remembered.

Also, there was the whole only-possible-to-see-the-entrance-from-one-very-specific-angle thing, plus the fact that he could access the roof from no less than six points, the non-descript appearance of the building itself, how it was hidden away in a tiny offshoot of one of the twistiest roads in the city, and then there was the hidden panel in the back of the closet that led to some strange crawlspace-like area between his mom's apartment and the one next door where he knew there was a relatively large cache of night-job-related things - which was pretty incriminating, actually. He didn't know why he even bothered hedging.

Oh, wait. It was because he knew too many detectives.

He couldn't really do anything about that at this point, though.

(Besides, detectives were _fun_ to play with.)

The inside of the apartment was a little dusty, he discovered, after successfully - though not effortlessly - having made his way up to the third floor (his mother's sense of humor was even more twisted than his was, and she'd apparently thought that she needed to test his reflexes - and people wondered why he was terrified of fish when it came flying at him at the speed of a car on the Autobahn from around nearly every corner; it was case of which came first, the fear of fish or the petrifying experience of his mother attempting exposure therapy by lobbing fish directly towards his face? Who knew? Not Kaito). A note lay neatly on the table, in direct contrast to the handwriting that sprawled across the paper.

He skimmed it quickly, having had the practice of deciphering his own handwriting (because _genetics_ were _obviously_ responsible for his slapdash script; that was his story and he was sticking to it), grin widening with every word.

Apparently, his mother had faked having a heart attack at a cafe nearby as soon as he'd called her, so that she would actually be admitted to a hospital the same day as he had supposedly gotten the message.

Kaito really loved his mom sometimes.

She'd even used her real name on the admission form, she'd been sure to add, so if he had time she was looking forward to seeing him. (Which really meant, _make time_. Fair, since he'd been the one to call her up out of the blue to say, _hey, can you pretend to be in the hospital for a week or so_ without anything remotely approaching an explanation because he was rather more focused on keeping his breathing steady - _four, seven, eight_ \- so he didn't start spiraling. She was entitled to a face-to-face debriefing, at the very least.)

Kaito rolled his suitcase into the guest room of his mother's apartment, letting it fall to the floor before squatting next to it and preparing to take inventory. A snap separated the roller bag back into his initial three suitcases, all of which he'd packed both meticulously and hurriedly, and thus were a bit on the messy side (and the plane ride itself hadn't done his barely-existent organization any good). He'd kind of thrown anything he could possibly need for a heist that might suddenly turn into a rescue mission and could probably get through airport security, which was actually a surprising amount. The neon green suitcase with eye-searing pink flowers held his clothes - including as many costumes as he could manage to fit in, but not the KID suit because that would be a bit of a give away if anyone searched through his bag; besides, his dad had a few spare in one of his storage units in Switzerland, so all he needed to do was pop down to pick it up - while the safety-vest orange and electric blue checkered one held most of his disguise tools (which were enough like makeup that he hadn't been particularly worried about security) and the psychedelic tie-dye one was full of his magician's tools.

...In retrospect, he probably should have been a bit more subtle. In both the patterns and the contents of the bags.

But, well.

What could he do. He'd spent about an hour chucking anything he could feasibly need onto his bed and then another two hours trying to make everything fit. He hadn't slept before leaving for the airport, which wasn't exactly the brightest idea he'd ever had but his sleep schedule was pretty messed up anyway so it wasn't much of a hardship. He probably would've ended up staring at the ceiling if he had stopped pacing and tried sleeping, vibrating with concern as his brain started conjuring increasingly unlikely scenarios that, with Meitantei's luck, were actually almost probable, so honestly it was probably for the best that he hadn't even tried...

In any case. He'd had to figure out how this heist was going to happen, anyway, since he was an idiot with no self-preservation and had only given himself a couple days to plan how to break into the goddamn Tower of London, so he'd focused on that instead.

Now he was kind of regretting not having been more discerning in what he'd packed, because at least two of his foundations were expired and a third was empty, while in his clothing bag there was one loafer and one stiletto heel that didn't have matches, plus a pair of truly hideous burnt chartreuse shoes that he didn't recognize and seemed to be the love child of a winter boot, a galosh, and a tennis shoe. He had no idea where they'd come from and even less of an idea as to why he'd decided they needed a place in his bag.

He was... _maybe_ a little more concerned about Meitantei than he'd initially thought if it was throwing him this much off his game.

Kaito shook his head, forcing his main train of thought back to laying out his vast assortment of supplies. Despite being half out of his mind at the time, it seemed that he'd been present enough to at least pack all of the essentials, plus a few more-specialized products he rarely used but could conceivably be of use in the near future. There were also a few things he'd had no idea he'd even _had_ , much less why he'd packed them - the boot-galosh-tennis-shoe _things_ came to mind - but he was...just going to pretend that they didn't exist for now. It was good for his (dwindling amounts of) sanity.

Now, the next step was figuring out how to disguise himself when he went to drop off his heist notice at the police station. Kaito wanted to give them a fighting chance, since there hadn't been a KID heist in England for twelve-plus years - to the best of his knowledge - which meant that they'd likely forgotten about him. Which, clearly, couldn't be allowed to stand.

Besides, he wanted a spectacle for his debut in Europe, even though it was going to be a little less...planned than he had expected it would be once he finally got around to it. Because, of course, KID was an _international_ thief, so traveling had _always_ been in the cards.

Kaito surveyed his materials again, running through the potential combinations in his head (why had he brought a rainbow wig, again? It wasn't even a clown wig - it would've been a standard ponytail had it not been dyed in streaks all the colors of a rainbow) to see what he had to work with.

It would have to be someone who had some sort of credibility with the police - a reporter, maybe? - but who wouldn't have a reason to be at the office every single day - preferably someone who had a relatively established routine he could observe or...someone he knew...

Hm.

Hakuba was in England, wasn't he?

Disguising himself as Hakuba was probably his best option, actually, which didn't mean it was great. On the plus side, Kaito knew him well enough that he could manage to fool anyone who knew him for an hour or two, and he knew for a fact that Hakuba _was_ actually in Britain, so it wouldn't be too out of the ordinary for him to make an appearance at a police station. Kaito also actually knew what Hakuba was like when he interacted with Meitantei, if he were somehow lucky enough to run into him immediately after setting foot in London, thanks to the whole Sunset Mansion ordeal. In short, his Hakuba disguise was pretty great, he had all the materials, and he _knew for a fact_ that it fooled even Hakuba's own father once Kaito committed to the role.

On the negative side, there was the whole personality/presentation code-switching thing that happened when someone bilingual/bicultural was put into different cultural contexts - Kaito, for example, used his hands to gesticulate _way_ more in French than in Japanese or English, because it was more culturally acceptable - expected, even. In any case, Kaito hadn't observed how Hakuba behaved in England before, and it was possible that he acted differently, in accordance with the differing cultural values, which could put a wrench in his plan - but, given he had observed and catalogued Hakuba for the better part of two years, he could probably manage a decent enough prediction of his behavior. So, really, it was likely less of an issue than he was making it out to be.

Also on the negative side was the fact that his spoken English was...not great. He could copy Hakuba's voice and accent well enough, but Kaito's vocabulary was probably about middle-school-level, if he were really being honest with himself - which could potentially prove to be a problem.

...It still wasn't the _worst_ idea he'd ever had, despite all the drawbacks.

(Super-gluing his mask to his face came to mind. But, like. It had turned out okay. Eventually.)

Well, whatever. The consequences of choosing Hakuba as a disguise would have to be a problem for future!Kaito because that was pretty much his only option if he wanted a face Meitantei could recognize - other than Kudou Shinichi, but that would be kicking an entirely different anthill, which he didn't particularly want to deal with. Besides. Kudou Shinichi didn't have a reason to be in London when he rarely left Japan, supposedly, and he probably didn't have any credibility with Scotland Yard. But, then again, he _had_ managed to evade the media's eyes for over a year now, somehow, so who knew what had happened since then. It was almost like he'd disappeared off the face of the planet - except that apparently he called Meitantei and Mouri Ran semi-regularly.

Well, whatever. That was a mystery for another day.

Anyway, Hakuba was still his best option, so he started the arduous task of rifling through his stacks of clothing in an attempt to come up with something Hakuba would conceivably wear that didn't dramatically offend Kaito's sense of style.

Kaito categorically refused to wear a deerstalker.

Just. No.

A brown suit and a white button-down, paired with brown loafers and a briefcase (because Hakuba was _boring_ ) was the end result. It didn't take too long to adjust his frame with a little strategically-placed padding to make sure the suit hung properly when he put it on and tug on a pair of skin-colored rubber gloves (courtesy of Jii's mystery friend) that were pretty much undetectable and had the added bonus of preventing him leaving his fingerprints on anything he touched. He'd packed his Hakuba wig, too, so he didn't have to worry about that (good thinking, past!Kaito), but the make-up took a little longer since this disguise was going to need to survive two train rides, the subway, and Scotland Yard. Crafting his features into Hakuba's was almost second nature at this point, but that didn't mean it wouldn't take time, especially if it needed to stand up to a certain amount of scrutiny. And, aside from that, even only vaguely Caucasian features were always irritating to work towards.

Still, it didn't take _too_ terribly long, and soon enough he was on the Eurostar heading to England, composing the heist note in his head on the way there because, again, he was an idiot with no self-preservation and hadn't actually made it up yet. Sure, he'd decided on what he was stealing - the crown jewels, as if he could settle for anything less during his European debut - and a flashy method that would _probably_ work, depending on what additional security measures the police put in place, but somehow the heist note had slipped his mind entirely until he'd actually sat down on the train to go deliver the nonexistent notice.

Plus, he also wanted it to somehow be a coded message for Meitantei, assuming he even had access to a newspaper, because he was _worried_ , damn it.

It took the better part of two hours to come up with a feasible idea (because the first fifteen or so were Not Good), so he had barely twenty minutes to refine it before he was herded off the train and into London. It didn't take long to find a public library after searching the map on one of his burner phones, and from there it was easy enough to copy-paste the excerpt he'd had in mind and tweak it to his satisfaction.

He ended up with something the police probably wouldn't understand unless they had paid _extremely_ close attention to his exploits - and even then, that might not be enough. It would be easy enough for Meitantei, though. Hakuba maybe had a shot (but, in all probability, likely not).

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⏳ weve 🔀 off dis 💀🔄,

Must ️🎁 us ⏸️. Theres da 🔎🔎

Dat makes 🛬🚓of so ️👪.

That was the final product, the initial lines taken of course from the famous Shakespeare play they'd had to study during English at school, because the teacher was American and said something along the lines of, "If I had to suffer through this in highschool, so do you!"

It had been traumatic, but apparently he still remembered the lines he'd had to memorize for the end-of-unit project:

 _To be, or not to be? That is the question—_

 _Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer_

 _The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,_

 _Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,_

 _And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep—_

 _No more—and by a sleep to say we end_

 _The heartache and the thousand natural shocks_

 _That flesh is heir to—'tis a consummation_

 _Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep._

 _To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub,_

 _For in that sleep of death what dreams may come_

 _When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,_

 _Must give us pause. There's the respect_

That makes calamity of so long life.

Which was a lot to unpack, but it was easy enough to Google a translation to plain English - or even to Japanese, if necessary. From there, the emojis were references to certain aspects and events…

It was a tad complex, sure, and needed some particular inside knowledge, but if it made sense to Kaito he was sure Meitantei would be able to figure it out eventually.

Kaito stretched his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders to relax them after pausing his rapid-speed typing for the first time since he'd sat down. He'd always worked best on a deadline.

A quick trip to the printer that turned into an extended one due to the vast number of students printing their final papers or exam study guides - and, on top of that, the printer was an old model that inked at a snail's pace at its fastest, and printing in color took even longer than that. It was a shame that color was pretty essential to his heist note, otherwise he would've said 'screw it' and printed it in black and white, especially since he needed five copies.

It was both tedious and mildly terrifying, because Hakuba and Nakamori had _nothing_ on sleep-deprived students running on only coffee and hope.

Kaito absconded out of there the moment it was remotely feasible, stopping only to scrub all traces of his presence from the computer he'd been using in a dark corner of the reference section, away from most of the security cameras and also in a blind spot because he was lucky that way. He blinked as the strident sunlight hit his face, taking a deep breath of city air - which didn't smell all that great, honestly, but it was a damn sight better than the stench of hopelessness and despair that had permeated the library.

He opened his briefcase and carefully placed the papers inside, exchanging them for his burner phone before shutting it. Now to Google the location of Scotland Yard…

To his surprise, it wasn't more than a couple of blocks away, and it was _astoundingly_ easy to sneak back into the bullpen. All he'd had to do was give a congenial nod to the receptionist and he'd waved him right through, busy talking to someone who appeared to be the particularly annoying-slash-entitled sort. Kaito kind of pitied them, especially since the receptionist was wearing eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man and he looked just about out of patience.

"But that car was _daddy's_ and I _need_ it back before he finds out - "

"Linda, this is the THIRD TIME THIS WEEK. I've told you that there's nothing I can do. Either learn to drive properly or deal with the consequences - !"

Kaito stifled a snicker before pulling on Hakuba's personality like a pair of thread-worn pyjamas - familiar, but not necessarily comfortable.

He tilted his head back slightly, shoulders set rigidly, raising his nose into the air and striding forward confidently.

"KID sent a heist notice," he announced flatly, focusing on carefully forming his words properly so that his English sounded passable. He brandished one of the copies at face-level, hand twitching slightly to match the vein pulsing in his forehead because that's what Hakuba did when KID sent him a personalized heist notice in Japan. Instead of a bunch of 'we know's echoing throughout the office, here he was only given a few quizzical looks.

He sighed. "Phantom Thief 1412, better known by his alias 'Kaitou KID.' Wanted by Interpol. Presumably male. First recorded activity eighteen years, twelve days ago. Mysterious ten-year break before his sudden return one year and forty-four days ago. Mostly active in Japan, but has been known to branch out into other countries. Gives advance notice of the date, time, place, and object of his focus in the form of a riddle, and yet had evaded capture over ninety-three times," he said, as if reading through a list of bullet points from a file he'd long-since memorized. "Always returns his 'prize,' but incredibly infuriating and prone to pranks," he added as an afterthought, because Hakuba _would._

...It occurred to him that he could've just sent Hakuba the heist note and bypassed all of _this_ but...hindsight was a bitch, apparently. This should not have been news to him.

And yet.

Kaito handed over the note to one of the officers, a group of whom had started congregating around him. He was going to need to stick around for a little while, both to make sure they took him seriously _and_ to give them a few hints, because he'd probably made this puzzle a tad too difficult. Since he'd been on a time crunch, he hadn't had the time to make sure there weren't too many red herrings...

A flurry of movement in the corner of his vision caught his attention, and he turned slightly to get a better image, continuing his light involvement in the conversation and adding a few hints absently. Six people had just entered the bullpen - a silver-haired officer (probably), a sandy-haired former military man (almost certainly), a curly-haired prat (definitely - this guy was giving off stronger Hakuba vibes than _Hakuba_ did, somehow), a clearly kick-ass female officer (the Aoko vibes were _overwhelming_ ) keeping an eye on a doctor in handcuffs (he didn't _seem_ like a mad scientist, but Kaito had a very limited sample size and was _maybe_ a little fond of TV tropes), and, finally, to his utter surprise, _Meitantei._

He looked...different.

It wasn't something he could properly describe in words, exactly, or even justify as a logical leap, but the kid looked...uncomfortable, maybe? Kaito wasn't in any way a detective (and he most assuredly didn't want to be, because then he'd have to worship _Holmes_ when Lupin was _clearly_ superior), but his night job had given him an intrinsic understanding of how people worked and acted based on their circumstances or emotions. It was how he was able to impersonate almost anyone in a pinch, after only a few moments of observation. If he wanted the disguise to hold up for a more substantial amount of time, he would of course have to study his target in more depth, but regardless. Meitantei, for example, he could likely impersonate easily enough for a day or so if he somehow managed to shrink ten years. Well - hm, that wasn't quite accurate, now, was it? Kaito would be able to manage that easily enough if only the kid were _consistent_ , which was also rather worrisome -

In any case. At least he was alive, if...rattled.

Kaito _knew_ people, okay, and he especially knew the majority of Meitantei's paranoid 'I'm-being-watched" tics.

(Because, granted, at heists, there usually _was_ someone watching him nearby, even though it was only the friendly neighborhood jewel thief.

Most of the time, anyway...)

And even though he was in the middle of Scotland Yard - arguably the safest place in London for him (though Kaito had to suppress the shiver that ran down his spine every now and then because _thieves were not meant to be in police stations for any extended amount of time_ , but for heist setup and apparently Meitantei he was willing to make exceptions) - Meitantei's eyes darted around, cataloguing the windows as escape routes, his little shoulders tenser than stage wire. He held the rest of himself deceptively loosely, which an amateur might assume to mean that he was relaxed, but in reality it was more like he felt he needed to be ready to move in any direction at a moment's notice. He was fiddling with the watch on his wrist - which appeared to be the one equipped with a spring-loaded tranquilizer dart because apparently he didn't only wear it on heists ( _worrying_ ) - with one hand while the other reached up every so often to absently tug at his bow tie (which had to be some kind of gadget because _no one_ wore bow ties if they could help it, much less a grade schooler), as if making sure it was still there. There were dark bags under his eyes that practically had their own block number, and he looked paler than usual, which probably wasn't noticeable to the people around him at that moment, but, like. Somebody get that boy a banana or something because he looked about thirty seconds from his body revoking control and forcing him to pass out long enough to regain function.

Damn. And Kaito thought _he_ had problems remembering to sleep. Meitantei looked like he hadn't got some shuteye for more than twelve hours in the past week.

(Kaito's personal record was four days without sleeping, and he'd been a bit loopy by the end of it. _Why_ had he thought the camels would be a good idea, _why_. Camels were _mean._ )

In any case, it looked like Meitantei didn't have any more idea what was going on than Kaito did - maybe even less.

He decided right then and there that he was going to find a chance to share information with Meitantei some time soon even if it got him arrested. The heist was going to happen soon enough, there was definitely a learning curve so the police likely weren't going to be much of an issue even if they _did_ listen to the suggestions Hakuba was bound to make, and _Kaito_ hadn't known that he was going to Europe so it was unlikely that his tag-alongs had made the journey with him. If, for some reason, they didn't manage to find a moment, he could also use the time for info-gathering and figure out where Meitantei was staying or something.

But, for the time being…

Meitantei should probably know that he wasn't alone. Or, at least, that he had someone familiar around…

But that would mean -

Kaito measured his breathing. _In for four, hold for seven, out for eight._

That would mean breaking the number one rule of disguise.

He'd done it _once_ before (also for Meitantei, actually, now that he'd thought of it), _once_ , when _lives_ were at stake and Conan had just been tossed out of a moving airship thousands of feet off the ground.

 _(Don't break character unless someone has already figured you out or you've achieved your goal and it's an appropriately dramatic moment.)_

But -

Another glance at Conan showed a tightness around his eyes and him trying to be aware of everything that was happening in the room at once despite an older silver-haired man with an open manila folder in his hand probably going over a case and - yeah, okay, fine.

If _Meitantei_ , of all his detectives, was really not focusing his entire being on the case in front of him, something was _really_ wrong.

He was -

He was really going to do it, wasn't he. He was going to break one of the first laws of disguise.

 _(His dad would be so disappointed in him - )_

Kaito shook his head, displacing the thought, and out of the corner of his eye he caught Conan's first reaction to his presence ( _incredibly delayed, shit_ ) which was to freeze and turn whiter than one of his doves, then slowly shift sideways until the tall curly-haired man's coat blocked him from sight. Honestly, he was a bit hurt. Here he was, ready to break - or at least bend - one of the most important rules of disguise, and Conan had the nerve to look - frightened? Of him? Of - ?

Oh. Of Hakuba. For some reason.

He was pretty sure that they'd only met, like, twice, though? Once at the Sunset Mansion (which honestly still gave him nightmares), and he'd been there for that, and then there was the - hm, what did Hakuba call it? The Detective Koushien, or something equally pretentious…

Nothing that would explain that reaction unless - ah.

See, this was why he wasn't a detective. Apart from their depressing lack of taste, of course.

To Conan, at this point Hakuba was an unknown variable.

So...the question was...do something completely out of character and purposely give himself away (he suppressed a violent cringe at the mere _thought_ , but it was still on the table) or ignore him completely as long as it was an option, for Conan's peace of mind?

Hm. Decisions, decisions.

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Sorry, this took a little longer than I was planning, but to make up for it it's 50% longer than I intended? Somehow?

I also wasn't intending to make this a Kaito chapter, but, well...here we are, I guess.

(Incidentally, the reason it's late is because I saw the Percy Jackson musical and my brain blue-screened for a solid two days afterwards because it was everything I could have possibly hoped for, wow.)

Let me know what you think! And also if the emojis in the heist note show up properly, please!


	11. Chapter 11

Notes: tw: implications of child neglect

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See, Conan's real problem with being shrunk, with maintaining the facade of being six-now-seven, was that, well, he'd never really learnt how to be a kid the _first_ time around, when he was _actually_ the age he was now pretending to be.

He'd been a precocious, arrogant brat the first time around, sure. He'd also been a precocious, arrogant brat when he was sixteen. Therefore, acting like that around people he'd known pretty much his entire life was a sure-fire way to blow his cover.

So, for having had about five seconds to come up with a convincing little kid act, despite not really knowing how kids acted and not being able to fall back on two of his main personality traits? Not bad.

Not good, obviously. But not _bad_. Not as bad as it could have been, at least.

(In a worst case scenario, everyone was dead already.)

(It was a good thing that some of his mother's acting lessons had stuck.)

(He'd never complain about them again.)

The problem was that he...didn't really remember how six-year-olds acted. And he was too short to conceivably be ten or eleven, which would have been far easier to construct a persona for, since he actually _remembered_ a fair amount from that period of his life. And any out-of-character maturity could be more easily written off as from 'hanging out with Shinichi-niichan,' since he, as Shinichi, would've minded hanging out around (slash babysitting) an older kid less than a literal baby.

(As opposed to a figurative baby?)

(Whatever.)

But since he was depressingly short and also he'd decided to act overly childish when he'd first seen Ran, he was stuck being the weird six-year-old who gave people emotional whiplash if they were standing too close when a murder case appeared. Because, well, cases deserved his full attention, as much as was possible, so he didn't have enough energy left over to hide his out-of-place maturity.

Like, for Haibara? Maturity worked, mostly because she _wasn't_ a complete mess pretending not to be, because she was actually _competent_ and could take care of herself. Which wasn't necessarily to say that he _wasn't_ competent, but, well.

Yeah, no, that was about right actually.

(It also worked because of gender roles and expectations, but if he mentioned that to Haibara he would get a blistering rant that was _already_ giving him a headache.)

For anything other than solving mysteries and accruing knowledge that might help him solve mysteries (and maybe soccer and playing the violin, he supposed, though those weren't exactly important to everyday life - hm, well, neither were mysteries for most people, but they were in the messed up thing called _his_ life, so...), Conan could admit that his skill set was...inadequate, at best.

(And that was definitely progress, that he could admit that.)

He knew enough to survive for a few days if he suddenly found himself inexplicably lost in the middle of a forest or on a deserted island, should the occasion occur, sure. He and his father had learnt a pretty diverse selection of survival skills during their family vacations (which probably deserved quotation marks, because they sure as hell weren't _restful_ ) to Hawaii, because it was unfortunately probably going to happen to one of them sooner or later.

(They both had pretended it was research for one of his father's books, for the sake of sanity.)

But, yeah, his domestic skills? His real-people skills? They...left something to be desired.

To put it kindly.

Before moving in with Ran, he'd been incapable of cooking even though he'd been effectively living on his own for nearly a decade. He couldn't even make _omurice_. That was just _sad._

...He'd been invited over to Ran's for dinner quite a bit while his parents had been out of the country for work, back when her parents were still together, so he'd eaten a reasonable amount of home-cooked food, but the rest of the time he'd mostly subsisted off of take-out and convenience store bentos. Which, in hindsight, was not the _smartest_ thing he'd ever done. But it wasn't like his parents couldn't afford it, and they had _definitely_ never taught him how to cook or anything, so he hadn't exactly had much in the way of options.

And then Ran's parents had separated and they'd had enough to worry about without a second kid in the mix, so he'd started ducking out by pretending he was having dinner with Agasa-hakase. Which, yeah, was something he'd actually done occasionally, but that man barely managed to remember to feed himself, much less an elementary schooler. Honestly, Conan would have been worried about child neglect had it been anyone other than Haibara, who was probably better at adulting than the actual adult in the house.

In short? Before he'd been turned six again, the extent of his cooking skills had been ordering take-out and being capable of turning on the rice cooker without killing himself. And he hadn't even done _that_ often, since the rice had always somehow ended up tasting burnt, no matter what he'd done. _Conan_ , on the other hand, had been learning under Ran's tutelage (not by choice, at first), and he _had_ been getting better…

(Not that that said much. It was a very, very low bar.)

And, as for other domestic skills? His parents had hired a maid service to come by once a week while he had been in primary school, so he hadn't really had to worry about that, either. He still to this day hadn't actually met them, either over at Ran's or caught up in murders - or, if he was really lucky, the library.

Anyway, Conan's brand of maturity came more from traumatizing murder scenes than actual life experience, which didn't exactly translate to a normal child's version of maturity very well.

It did, however, work reasonably well for a child psychic who had previously been established as a murder magnet, or at least a crime magnet. Especially if said child psychic kept the company of older ghosts.

Speaking of which. It would probably be best to introduce one, in order to deflect the spotlight he'd put on himself. He should _really_ stop doing that. But, well, habits were hard to break.

(Also, given his parents, his showboating tendencies were probably at least partially genetic, and/or learnt behaviours.)

(...It was possibly also partially KID rubbing off on him, but he was going to pretend that the thought had never occurred to him.)

"At least, that's what Toichi-ojisan said when I asked him why people lie," Conan said with a shrug once the silence after pause had stretched long enough that it was almost awkward.

Kuroba Toichi. Family friend. Taught his mother (and Vermouth) how to disguise herself as anyone in under ten minutes. Burnt to death during a magic show under suspicious circumstances. Case still unsolved, even though Conan kept copies of the admittedly sparse and shoddily-filled-out police file on both of his cell phones and worked on it occasionally, as much as he could when he had next to no information on the scene of the crime, much less interviews of any suspects. Personal connection to the victim, suspicious, violent, unsolved death - probably the perfect circumstances for a...spirit guide or guardian ghost or whatever.

...Even though technically Conan didn't have a personal connection, but, well. He could make one up if someone asked.

(He was very carefully keeping what he knew about Toichi-ojisan deliberately separate from what he knew about Kaitou KID because plausible deniability was helpful in this situation.)

( _"Hey, dad? Why are you sending a copy of your newest Night Baron book to Toichi-ojisan with a sticky note with an exclamation mark on the front?"_

 _"...You'll understand when you're older, Shinichi."_

 _"I'm_ five _, dad! I'm old enough to know!"_

 _"Not quite yet, Shinichi. I think you'll need to wait for his successor..."_

 _"Huh? What's that mean?"_

 _"..Nothing, Shinichi. Would you like to look at some of the crime scene photos Megure-keiji sent over?"_

 _"Even though Mom says you shouldn't let me do that anymore?"_

 _"It'll be our secret."_

 _" 'Kay!")_

(PLAUSIBLE. DENIABILITY.)

(Though why he even bothered at this point was a mystery - one he wasn't exactly keen on solving, for a change. The less he thought about it, the less he could deduct that could be used in a court of law.)

(...Even if he actually thought it through to its conclusion, it wouldn't be the first secret he'd kept from law enforcement. Also not even the first slightly illegal thing he'd done in the name of protecting someone.)

(Because of course he wouldn't turn in KID after that story. Couldn't.)

(...He probably wouldn't have before anyway, regardless of whether or not he'd known why KID broke the law. It was selfish of him, he knew, to want to keep literally the only place he could go where corpses weren't likely to turn up in his immediate vicinity. But, well, he'd never claimed not to be selfish…)

(Besides, arresting someone who was trying to protect people, even if they were going about it in a somewhat illegal way...well, that would make him a hypocrite. And Conan was many things, but he tried his best not to be a hypocrite.

Most of the time, it even worked.)

"...Who's Toichi?" Lestrade asked, apparently having mostly figured out the whole suffix thing. He looked like he was regretting speaking as soon as he opened his mouth.

Conan didn't blame him. Especially when his response was, "Toichi-ojisan helps me out sometimes when grown-ups are being weird. He's a magician. The cool kind of magician, though, not the mean kind."

He really didn't have any control over what was coming out of his mouth anymore, huh. The real question was, was he channeling his mother or KID? He didn't even know anymore. He also wasn't going to think about it too hard.

"We're - " Lestrade sighed, raising his fingers to rub at the bridge of his nose. He was going to get bruises there if he didn't stop. "Okay, we're not going to touch that. So - "

"Is this 'Toichi' fellow alive or dead?" John broke in, looking morbidly curious.

"Oh, um," Conan blinked. "He died when I was - " shit, he can't say eight, damn, um, " - little."

Sure. Close enough.

He really needed to get out of his head.

It was a dangerous place in there.

Especially with Sherlock-bloody-Holmes analyzing his every move.

" - probably," he added belatedly to cover his ass, just in case any of them got it into their heads to actually check obituaries or something. "I dunno, he's kinda always been around."

John accepted this wordlessly, though not without a strange look on his face, and Lestrade looked like he was regretting every single decision he'd ever made to lead him to this point.

Sherlock was intrigued, so Conan should probably steer clear or doing anything else potentially interesting for another - five minutes, at least.

Which, yeah, probably wasn't going to be happening since he'd just dropped the whole 'ghost mentor' bomb, but he could dream about having a sense of self-preservation, couldn't he?

(Wow, Haibara was _actually_ going to kill him. And then figure out a way to resurrect him so that she could bring him back and kill him all over again. He wouldn't even blame her - it was a pretty understandable reaction.)

"So, anyway, I need to go to the houses and talk to the people if I want to be able to tell you stuff," Conan said before Sherlock could start asking questions about how being psychic worked, because _he_ didn't even know yet and wouldn't until he got his hands on something secure with internet access. Which probably meant his phone. Which he wouldn't be able to charge until he got back to Sherlock and John's flat, if at all. So.

Since it was becoming increasingly clear that the Adults wouldn't let him go question witnesses without a long, arduous argument, Conan formulated the simplest and most fool-proof plan he could, mostly because he was definitely starting to feel the jet lag again and he didn't trust himself with anything too complicated while he was so out of it.

Besides, every minute he stood there doing _nothing_ was another minute that Maria's killer was walking free, and he'd prefer to minimize that number if at all possible.

The simplest plan he could come up with, one with less than a ten percent chance of failure, was to look up how to get to one of the suspects' addresses on a phone, then take the London Underground.

(Normally, he'd be worried about cameras, but, well, he was in _London_ and they had CCTV _everywhere_ so it was kind of a moot point.)

So, the real question was…

How was he going to get a phone?

(More accurately: Whose phone should he... _borrow_?)

Of the three people in the room with presumably working phones, John's was the most likely to actually be charged, which was definitely desirable.

...On the other hand, though, he was _also_ the most likely to accidentally snap someone's wrist on reflex if he sensed them going for his ribs. So.

Not the best idea.

Lestrade, the next likely to have an almost fully-charged phone, was sitting down on the opposite side of the desk, suit jacket unbuttoned. It would be easy enough to slip his phone out of his pocket if Conan could get to the other side of his desk.

Therein laid the problem, however.

Because managing to actually get close enough to pickpocket Lestrade inconspicuously and NOT draw attention to himself wouldn't exactly be easy.

...Hm. That was _assuming_ that he needed to refrain from drawing attention to himself.

(A plan started forming in his head, not entirely consciously, just in case the occasion should occur. KID did so enjoy expounding the virtues of misdirection, after all, and that was something they could agree upon…)

There was also the slight catch that he had no idea what kind of training, exactly, Detective Inspector Lestrade had undergone before applying to the Police Academy...assuming they even had that in England, of course, because for some reason his brain was deciding to throw doubts about his memory at him. Why not. It had already been an incredibly shitty day, so why _wouldn't_ the universe decide that, no, being a corpse magnet isn't enough, this guy _also_ needs to be as inconvenienced as possible, including random relocations with no explanation, multiple cases, little to no technology, and a bad brain day _on top of all that!_

(...it was possible that Conan was, perhaps, a bit stressed.)

...But, then again, Sherlock's phone was the most conveniently located. And, if he could get him distracted enough, probably wouldn't even notice it missing until much, much later.

Possibly.

Because Sherlock's situational awareness, at least involving what he had decided to term his 'transport' like the proper posh git he was, had never been particularly spectacular. And, also as a proper posh git, he came from money - _old_ money. Conan wouldn't be surprised if he found an Earl or Duchess or something in the Holmes family tree - more than one, most likely - and he was almost entirely certain that Sherlock himself didn't bother with any type of bills, instead leaving the family to take care of it - an older sibling, perhaps, or his parents?

Anyway, Sherlock had no particularly good reason to have learnt how to prevent pick-pocketing. Someone stealing his wallet or a few bills would be pretty much a nonissue for him. Conan had no doubts, of course, that Sherlock had managed to teach himself how to pickpocket, sure, but measures against someone else? That was something he would have almost certainly neglected, unless something rather significant had changed in the last few years.

Still.

A wavering 'no' was much better than a certain 'yes, this man will definitely break my wrist if I stick my hand in his pocket.'

So. That was that, then. Sherlock's phone was probably the safest (and easiest) to...borrow.

There was, of course, a slight negative to his plan, since he had no idea whether or not Sherlock had his phone charged…

But, no, he realized with a jolt. That was wrong, wasn't it?

Because although it would be completely in character for a bored Sherlock to neglect to charge his phone, in reality it would be completely implausible. His phone was the way the police contacted him with cases - it would be far more likely that he would keep it fully charged at all times. He probably even carried a power bank around in his pockets.

Also, there was the whole 'unlimited data plan' that Sherlock almost assuredly had, while the other phones within reach most likely did not.

And, added to the fact that John had almost certainly put some sort of tracker on the phone at this point, probably actually his best option. He was going to need a badge of some sort to get into the houses - or at least adult supervision - and he wasn't actually ignorant enough to think that Lestrade, at least, would let him go off and investigate on his own, so he probably would need some sort of...chaperone, as irritating as it was.

Because, honestly, who was going to let a stranger into their house without good reason, especially if they're a child who's quite clearly not from England and they're saying they're part of a murder investigation?

(Because, try as he might, Conan had never quite managed to rid himself of the vestiges of a Japanese accent.)

(He was still jealous of Hattori for somehow having a flawless British accent when he spoke English.)

(...He was pretty sure it was because of his relentless mocking of Hakuba.)

(Speaking of whom, was it possible he was in England? And if he were…

Avoid or make contact?)

(...Avoid, if at all possible; Conan knew Hakuba's father was high up in the police force, and he'd overheard some of Nakamori-keibu's underlings discussing in hushed tones the fact that someone high up in the police force was denying their requests to search the surrounding buildings of some of KID's heists - the ones with what he was wont to call "the more enthusiastic fans.")

(Conan had a sneaking suspicion that those "fans" were connected to the organization that had nearly killed him.)

(...Better safe than sorry.)

And, well. Conan could admit to himself that being capable of stealing Sherlock Holmes' phone had a certain appeal to it. The bragging rights, in particular, would be astronomical. It would be a great way to poke a (small, granted) hole in Sherlock's massive ego.

So, that settled it, Conan supposed.

He discarded the half-thought-out plan to get Lestrade's phone (which involved drawing more attention to himself than he was comfortable with and slipping back into the habit of acting like he was four when he needed to deflect, which would be fairly out of character for the version of him that he had constructed here, the 'psychic' version - basically, the plan had been to dance around childishly, asking inane questions until he'd caused a big enough distraction that he could slip Lestrade's phone from his pocket; it had been his go-to plan back in Japan, and the sad part was that _it worked_ ), instead concocting a strategy for picking Sherlock's pocket.

It took a total of approximately five whole seconds to come up with something.

 _Strategy_ might have been a strong word for it, though.

Step 1: Distraction

The conversation had obviously moved on while he'd been determining which phone was best to...liberate briefly (wow, he was even starting to _think_ like KID; he should probably stop spending so much time with the damn cat thief - except, no, he wasn't going to do that because, one, heists were the only place he could go where a body _probably_ wouldn't fall on top of him by virtue of KID sucking up all of the surrounding crazy in the area, and two, he was starved for companionship a non-murderous challenge or something, apparently).

(Step 1.5: Stop Thinking About Kaitou KID, Damn It!)

The great thing about looking like a little kid, however, was the fact that he didn't actually have to pay attention to where the conversation was going and could just jump in with whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and it would be completely normal for a seven-year-old.

Thus.

"I still think I should be able to go to the suspects' houses," Conan pouted. "It's not fair that I can go to the murder scene but not question the suspects! Besides, Toichi-ojisan will be with me!"

Which sparked something in Sherlock's eyes, leading him to champion the cause - probably on the behalf of his younger self, who almost certainly had only been allowed access to cold case files, if any at all.

Which led to John and Lestrade arguing that crime scenes were _not actually places where children should be, even if they're psychic_. John was a little less emphatic, probably because his trousers and shoes said that he didn't have any kids - oh, and also the fact that he was living with Sherlock and his myriad of experiments (read: death traps for anyone under ten).

Distraction achieved.

Step 2: Wait.

It didn't take too long for the argument to hit its peak, with all three men shouting at each other.

Conan... _might_ have helped it along, a little, fueling the flames whenever it seemed like it was starting to wind down into 'conversation' territory by interjecting things that the Japanese police allowed him to do. Especially the stuff that happened unsupervised. And then some stuff about Toichi, when that got old. He refrained from mentioning anything too specific, though, just in case he needed to pull some kind of bullshit explanation out of a hat at a later date.

All in all, maybe five minutes was the time it took for him to get bored enough to mentally declare that it was time for step three.

(Haibara would've given it longer and called him an 'impatient little shit' but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.)

Step Three: Pickpocket.

It was disappointingly easy to wait until John and Lestrade started deviating from their main argument into separate factions, thanks to a few points from Sherlock and a 'helpful' comments from Conan. He struck when John was facing Lestrade, speaking (shouting at, really) to him - something about the minimum age of a person who could be admitted to a crime scene, probably? And maybe also something about whether or not ghosts that might or might not actually exist were adequate chaperones, but Conan wasn't actually listening all that closely, to be completely honest - which drew the attention of both Lestrade and Sherlock to him, and, more importantly, away from Conan.

From there, it was fairly simple to slip his hand into Sherlock's outside pocket and quickly but carefully remove his phone, avoiding brushing against the coat itself as much as possible.

...He wasn't careful enough, unfortunately, probably because the scant amount of caffeine in his shitty instant coffee from the hospital cafeteria had been funneled towards escaping the guy who had tried holding him at gunpoint and then the ensuing emotional turmoil, which was what he was calling that whole... _thing_.

Sherlock's shoulder twitched slightly when he felt his coat shift, giving Conan just enough of a warning to hide the phone behind his back and smile beatifically up at him when he turned to determine the source of the sensation.

He gave Conan an unreadable look, like the synapses in his head were firing but he couldn't quite make the connection. His eyes darted from Conan's hands, clasped together behind his back and hiding the phone that he'd palmed (that he could hide it simply by holding it behind his back and covering it with both his hands was an advantage of being short, Conan supposed, though he'd never been particularly happy about it and probably never would be), and the hem of his coat, attempting to piece together the relevance and possible connections between the two.

Sherlock's eyes gained a curious glint only moments before he got it, subtly patting his pocket twice to confirm that it was empty - of the phone, at least.

Conan froze, his 'innocent' smile twitching downwards as he prepared himself for an outburst, or at least some type of angry acknowledgement.

Which.

...Wasn't happening?

For some reason.

Huh.

Instead of what Conan had expected - or even just quietly taking back the phone - Sherlock just sort of...slid his eyes away back to the conversation with a knowing (smug) smile.

The smirk was annoying, yes, but then he did something even stranger than allowing Conan to get away with stealing his phone.

Sherlock used the hand resting against his pocket to make a circle with his fingers and thumb, almost a fist, then tapped against his coat nine times, then another circle, then another tap.

Zero, nine, zero, one.

Four digits.

...also John Watson's birthday in the books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

(It couldn't possibly be _this_ John's birthday, could it? The odds of that had to be astronomical.)

Wait.

Was.

Was that his passcode?

(No way.)

Incredulously, Conan entered the numbers into the lock screen, and, sure enough…

It opened to the home screen - a stock photo, grey gradient, nothing particularly remarkable. The only apps that seemed to get much use, judging by their placement, were the messaging app, the standard web browsing app, the maps app, and, oddly, Candy Crush.

Huh. Sherlock probably only played it when there were no cases (something Conan had yet to experience) or projects to work on, to get his brain to quiet down a little. That, or John had installed it on his phone for a laugh. A quick tap of the icon revealed it to be more likely the former, as whoever played the game had made it to the two hundred and first episode. That took some real dedication.

Conan shook his head and exited the app, instead pulling up Google Maps and searching for the fastest way to the first address that he could remember - Lucy Collins. It was probably about twenty minutes away if he took the Tube. The little blue line that highlighted the best path to the nearest station was very helpful. The only problem with that was…

He didn't have a ticket.

Actually, wait, that didn't matter. Since he was (read: appeared to be) younger than eleven, he could take the Tube for free. He'd need to find a group of tourists or something - preferably a family with a couple young children - to tag along behind, to pretend he was with them, just in case.

Hm.

So.

He'd best be off, then.

It was incredibly easy to just...slip out the door to Lestrade's office and grin at the one person who saw him exit innocently, like he was just going to find some food or something (which, actually wouldn't be a bad idea - he was pretty sure that he hadn't eaten anything in...almost twenty hours? That probably wasn't good. Haibara would be angry if she ever found out, and that would mean, well, nothing he really wanted to think about too closely). Nothing to see here, officer. Just a minor scampering off to the toilet or something.

(He could feel Sherlock's eyes following him as he left, which was pretty disconcerting, but also kind of familiar, almost? It was weird, the way that it reminded him of KID - though it was usually Conan on the other side, the side that was watching. Except for that one time with the music box and the moonstone. Which was what this particular gaze reminded him of, minus the strange almost-telepathy thing - obviously it couldn't _actually_ be telepathy, since telepathy didn't actually exist outside of Mitsuhiko's science fiction books and that one episode of Kamen Yaiba - that had...occurred. It was weird. And he was kind of trying to pretend that whole incident had never actually happened, because denial was clearly his favorite - possibly only - coping mechanism.)

(The therapist from that one time that Ran had decided he was probably traumatized had had _opinions_ about that.)

(Currently. he was ignoring her advice, which probably wasn't the best idea he'd ever had, but, well. He'd never claimed that he made the best decisions when it came to his health.)

(He was totally fine. Clearly.)

No one stopped him as he slipped out of Scotland Yard, primarily because he was too short to be in most officer's line of sight. The two who had actually noticed him (of the thirty or so he'd passed as he sedately walked through the bullpen and then the surrounding halls) got big, beaming smiles. One had asked if he was lost - he was pretty sure it was the same officer from earlier, Kim or Kia or something, but he couldn't see her name tag from where he'd been standing - and he'd shaken his head and said something about the toilet because apparently that was his go-to excuse for leaving situations quickly. She'd given him directions and then let him be on his way.

Conan resisted the urge to whistle innocently as he made his way towards the nearest entrance to the Underground. It was a near thing, but the fact that he couldn't actually whistle any sort of tune tipped the balance. Shame. Charing Cross Station was only two minutes away on foot (three and a bit since his legs were so short), though, so he wouldn't have had the time to come up with a halfway decent tune anyway.

There was a large influx of people going into the station, even though it was only a little more than a quarter to five, so Conan just insinuated himself into a large touristy-looking group and sort of trailed along beside them. He was close enough that he looked like he was part of the group to a passer-by, but far enough away that the group itself didn't notice anything amiss. He followed them through the station to the ticket gates - the crowd parted to allow the tourists to mostly stay together, which was nice of them, so it was fairly untraumatizing.

(Although his scale for 'traumatizing' included various stages of decomposition of human remains, getting thrown out an airship by fake terrorists, getting shot at by various people, being force fed poison, feeling like his bones were shrinking and organs bursting, and so on and so forth…

...His was _probably_ not the best metric to use in terms of trauma.)

But, like, it was a Tube station and no one died. So, all in all, it was pretty low on his list of things that could be potentially trauma-inducing.

Anyway.

After noticing a few posters on the walls advertising a public transit app (he was riding an escalator and he didn't have anything better to do than read the ads running past), he idly checked Sherlock's phone to see if he had it installed.

Conan hadn't really been expecting anything, since he knew that Sherlock mostly took taxis (partially due to previous interactions with him but also because of the folds and cleanliness of his clothes), so he was surprised to find that he did,in fact, have the app.

Which meant that Conan didn't have to do anything dishonest to get onto the train - or, well, _more_ dishonest, since pick-pocketing wasn't exactly the most honest thing in the world.

So, with that (minimal) weight lifted from his shoulders, he tagged along at the end of the train of tourists as the went through the gate, smiling at them brightly whenever someone made eye contact.

(It occurred to him that he could probably pull off the weird American grimace thing, but he didn't want to push his luck. Did kids even do the grimace thing? He should look in to that.)

He split off from the tourists pretty much as soon as he was through, since they were going in different directions and his train was leaving in approximately thirty seconds. In an uncharacteristic moment of luck, Conan managed to slip through the doors as they were closing and scoot over to a seat by the window where he could hold on to something without dislocating and/or amputating his arm.

From there, he could see Lestrade and John fighting their way through the crowd, because apparently someone had noticed he was missing in the last seven-and-a-half minutes and decided to chase after him.

Conan smirked mischievously and waved at them as the subway train sped up because, well.

Why not?

After all, he'd been under no illusions that they'd actually let him go to a potential murderer's house without adult supervision, even if it definitely would make things a conservative ten times easier. This way, though, they wouldn't have any way to refuse him, since they'd already be at the suspects' house and he could just...sneak away whenever they turned their backs on him for more than a second and knock on the front door.

...He had no idea how Ran hadn't caved and bought a child leash or something yet.

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Notes:

so yeah sorry this is Late and also Unedited so if you see anything hinky definitely say something

(my sister graduated so i've been working on a lot of things for her)

i took a hiatus so i could work on a different project for a discord server i'm in - it's my hero academia, a Leverage fusion/soulmate au, so uh...if you're interested you should check it out

(and then i tried to do fictober so hey new dcmk oneshots)

also i Might be changing the order of some chapters because i am Pretty Sure that i have 4 and 8 in the wrong places. yeah.

feel free to make guesses in the comments now that you know all the suspects!

also yell at me to come back and edit this plz thx


	12. Chapter 12

tw: explanation of/implied child abuse (very brief: you can skip the paragraph starting 'She opened her mouth to speak' and that's it.)

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Conan was just about to pull out Sherlock's phone and Google "psychics" - because he really should know more about what he was pretending to be if he was actually doing this - when he glanced across the subway car and his eyes landed on a young girl. She was maybe five or six, with pretty green eyes like Hattori's and black hair. The part that caught Conan's attention, though, was the nervous way she kept glancing at the woman with a hand on her shoulder keeping her in place, and the way that the girl was leaning away from her supposed guardian.

Conan sighed internally. It appeared that being summoned to a dead body, instead of just coming across one, meant the rest of the day was going to be filled with an absurd number of non-lethal cases.

Because that girl pretty clearly seemed to be in the process of being kidnapped.

This was his life now, he guessed.

He _never_ got a break - except for maybe KID heist, if they even counted since they were _technically_ still crimes that he was trying to stop.

But, well.

Someone had to do it, and it may as well be him, since he at least solved the case _correctly_.

(Unlike 'Sleeping Kogoro' before he "fell asleep." How on earth had he ever become a detective, again?)

(...No, he was being uncharitable. Kogoro was a half-decent detective when he actively _tried,_ but he'd become so used to Conan jumping in and saving him whenever he started leaning in the wrong direction that he'd become...complacent.)

(That, and he could probably use a therapist. He had almost _textbook_ signs of depression, and he'd probably get more use out of a psychologist than Conan had.)

(It hadn't been her fault, of course. How do you treat a seventeen-year-old crime magnet who currently looked seven and whose paranoia was actually rational?)

(It's not paranoia when they're really out to get you.)

 _In for four. Hold for six. Out for seven._

Conan sidled over to the kidnapper, eyes wide and prepared to go into puppy-dog mode at a moment's notice. He tugged at her skirt, blinking his eyes rapidly and looking directly into the fluorescent light above her head to make them water. "Oba-san?"

The woman looked down at him, and he met her full-force with teary eyes and a quivering lip. She was forty-something, maybe, with unremarkable tea-blonde hair, brown eyes, and knees that said she probably scrubbed floors for a living.

She sighed faintly, just barely loud enough for Conan to hear if he strained his ears, but quietly enough that no one nearby noticed. "What is it, luv?" she asked, shifting her feet slightly as if preparing to crouch down but deciding against it at the last minute.

(Conan was...not mad about that.)

"I'm - I'm _lost!_ " he sniffled, pitching his voice even higher than the annoyingly grating tone he used for his 'Shinichi-niichan told me!' saves. He really needed to come up with better excuses than that and 'I saw it on TV.' He was basically alternating between them whenever someone looked suspicious of his highly specialized knowledge, and if he didn't add a fresh one in there somewhere soon someone was going to catch on.

(Honestly? Takagi-keiji probably already had. But that was a problem for another day.)

(...Actually, could he count 'I'm psychic!' as an excuse?)

(...Best not get too used to it. That probably wouldn't fly back in Beika.)

(... _probably._ )

(...perhaps he should do more research on this whole psychic thing. Haibara, at least, would get a good laugh out of it, and she sure as hell needed one every now and then, especially after this whole debacle.)

"Oh, it's alright, luv," the kidnapper said, leaning towards him slightly. "Where are your parents?"

This, Conan decided, was the wrong question to ask. "They're - they're - " He deliberately made his voice break. " - they're _g-gone_ and I d-don't know where they are and I can't _r-read_ these signs and - "

The woman made the mistake of moving the hand pinning the girl in place (because her other hand was rather firmly attached to one of the straps hanging from the ceiling) to pat Conan comfortingly on the shoulder. "There, there, luv. Let's see if we can't figure out where they went…"

Conan made eye contact with the girl over her shoulder and jerked his chin towards the doors. He could feel the subway car slowing down as they neared the station, and this was her best chance to escape.

She didn't appear to understand that, though, cocking her head at him in confusion even as her limbs trembled minutely.

(It was times like these that he missed the Detective Boys, who would've understood him almost immediately.)

Conan smothered his desire to roll his eyes exaggeratedly and allowed the kidnapper to appear to soothe him for a few seconds, then ramping up the waterworks and flailing his arms as a distraction while he stared at the girl pointedly, then at the door that was just now sliding open as the train slowed to a stop.

She blinked slowly, then realized that he was giving her an out. She turned on her heel and sprinted through the doors, tiny backpack bobbing behind her.

Conan breathed a silent sigh of relief, then went back to babbling at (read: distracting) the kidnapper.

(Sure, he was within grabbing distance of a kidnapper, but at least the kid was safe.)

He probably should have planned further ahead than 'get the kid away from the kidnapper' but alas, he was low on coffee yet again. And it wasn't like the jet lag was helping.

(Neither were the remnants of whatever sedative the person who'd brought him to London had used to keep him from escaping.)

(He still hadn't figured out who that was, which was...slightly worrying.)

(But apparently they knew him well enough to use one of the only types of sedatives that he wasn't mildly allergic to - unless it'd been luck, of course. Or the symptoms had disappeared before he'd woken up on the couch in 221B Baker Street.)

"There, there," the woman tried to soothe him, so Conan ramped up the waterworks instead. Being able to cry on command had never been so useful.

(Maybe he should try it during the next KID heist. What better way to throw a phantom thief off balance than to start crying on him?)

"Um, Miss? Miss!" one of the other passengers said urgently, trying to get the woman's attention.

The train doors closed and Conan breathed a silent sigh of relief, letting the waterworks start to fade into sniffles as they pulled away from the Tube station

The kidnapper turned her head just enough to make aggravated eye contact with the man who had dared to interrupt her, then jerked her head towards Conan. _Look, I'm trying to comfort this crying child, so could you maybe not distract me?_ was what that probably meant in Adult.

"Miss," the man continued, unfazed. "Miss, your child got off the Tube at the last station."

Conan watched a series of micro-expressions flit across the woman's face. Surprise, shock, concern, anger, acceptance, resignation, anger again, then fury, then she finally settled on worry. It was probably convincing to everyone else in the car, but Conan could see that it was a pasted-on worry that was peeling at the edges, crinkly and tearing at the seams, revealing a roiling mass of fury beneath.

If Conan hadn't been sure about getting the kid away from this woman before, that would have clinched it.

He burst into tears again, drawing her attention back to him. "I - I'm _sorry_ ," he hiccuped. "It's - it's my _fault_ \- "

"No, no, luv," she said, reaching out to pat his head. Conan restrained a flinch. He didn't particularly want her hands on his person. "This is _all_ on Rebecca."

Conan allowed his bawling to fade into loud sniffles. "A-are you _sure?_ Because - because - !"

"Yes, well - " the kidnapper hesitated for a moment, eyes darting around the car to gauge the reactions of the people watching the spectacle...which is basically everyone, even if they were pretending to mind their own business.

No.

Wait.

Actually, she was evaluating how much attention people were paying to her, and her mouth twitched before she said, a little louder than strictly necessary, "Well, really, it's her parents' fault."

Conan blinked. He couldn't have asked for a better opening. "You're not her mommy?" he asked innocently, like he couldn't tell from their hair.

Ugh. He did _not_ like the way that word sounded in his mouth. It was...icky.

The kidnapper ruffled Conan's hair, and he had to steel his spine in order to not flinch away. "No, luv, I'm not. Her parents are very bad people, so I'm taking her to one of her relatives' houses while Child Services confronts them."

Conan blinked up at her, eyes wide. "What's 'Child Services?'" he asked, because she'd said it like he should recognize the organization, but he was _seven_ and looked even younger. He wouldn't know what Child Services was unless he'd had personal experience with them.

Obviously, she'd mentioned it more for the people watching them more than for his edification.

Actually, come to think of it, was that even what they called the agency for children's welfare in England? That could be indicative of time spent abroad - hell, her Yorkshire accent was so thick that Conan was struggling to understand everything she was saying; he didn't have a chance in the world of pinpointing the subtleties of an amalgamated accent. It wasn't like he had too much experience with them in _Japanese_ , let alone in English.

(There was Hakuba, he supposed, but his Japanese was impeccable and almost completely devoid of a British accent - at least, that was what Conan had observed from the whole _two_ times they'd interacted.)

(Unless - did the time with the amusement park and wrist bombs count, even though it was KID impersonating Hakuba?)

(No, probably not.)

Well, in this case, it probably didn't matter _too_ much.

(He made a note of it anyway, just in case.)

(You never knew when seemingly innocuous details might become the key to cracking open a case.)

…Conan probably should have been listening to her explanation, huh. He wasn't exactly familiar with anything to do with child protection. But.

In his defense.

 _Jet lag._

"...Does that make sense, luv?"

Conan nodded automatically, even though he hadn't really heard a word of her explanation. Whatever. Too late to worry about it now. He could look it up later, if necessary. But, for the time being… "Why are her parents bad?"

One of the ladies listening in winced noticeably, and two other people averted their eyes.

The kidnapper blinked rapidly, surprise flashing over her face briefly, anger on its tail, before she stifled her reaction with a mask of apprehension. She made eye contact with the woman who'd winced, pleading wordlessly for help. The other woman shrugged apologetically, then turned decisively to look out the window at the drab grey concrete rushing past.

Clearly, she was not going to be coming to the kidnapper's rescue.

(Ha.)

Not that the kidnapper had actually intended her to - it felt more like she was playing the part that was expected of her as a stressed woman losing a child she'd been taking away from a bad situation and was now stuck baby-sitting a _different_ child until the next stop.

It was in the way she held herself, the way she brushed back her hair, and especially the way her eyes seemed...flat.

The same way Chianti's felt flat.

Conan suppressed the third violent shiver in five minutes. Maybe he should just pretend to have a cold and be done with it.

The kidnapper crouched down so that she was at Conan's eye level, and Conan disliked her that much more for reminding him just how short he currently was.

She took a deep breath, tilting her head down so that her eyes were shadowed by the short brim of her hat.

(It struck Conan as strange, how different it was from when KID did the same movement. It was part of his generic repertoire and Conan had seen him do it dozens of times, maybe even hundreds, but it had never seemed as...ominous, perhaps, was the word.)

Her teeth glinted in the fluorescent lights, and Conan noted absently that they were well taken care of, though not as white as an American movie star's. They contrasted with her lips, painted a dull brown color that made her skin look more sallow than it was, giving her an almost sickly appearance.

She opened her mouth to speak, and Conan was vaguely disgusted to find that she had several pieces of lettuce stuck in her teeth and somehow hadn't noticed. "Sometimes parents are bad. Sometimes they don't mean to be, but sometimes they do, and their children pay the price. Sometimes that means forgetting to feed them, sometimes it means locking them in their room for days on end, sometimes it means…"

Conan tuned her out, nodding every now and then to make it look like he was paying attention. He didn't need the life lesson, especially when he knew viscerally what it was like. Not all from personal experience, of course, but he'd solved enough cases where escaping such situations was a motive to understand the concept. When she was done, he pasted an exaggeratedly confused expression on his face and looked at her quizzically.

"Oh - do you still not understand, luv?" she asked, the epitome of patience.

"No, I understand," he said, shaking his head. "It's just - oba-san, why are you lying?"

And suddenly everyone's attention was squarely back upon them. The tension in the air was almost tangible, a physical weight pressing down on their shoulders. The woman's shoulders tensed noticeably - she could feel it, too.

Conan caught a flash of light against metal from the corner of his eye and chanced a quick glance at it - someone had pulled out their phone to film the encounter, like it was some sort of stage show and not Conan preventing this woman from kidnapping a little girl.

Damn.

Well.

If he was being filmed, he'd better not stray too far from the 'psychic' story he'd cooked up, because he had no doubt that Sherlock would manage to find the video as soon as it was online.

So.

He might as well have some fun with it.

The kidnapper laughed, clearly fake and not quite covering the thread of nervousness in the sound. "What do you mean, luv?"

Conan gave her a sharp, Haibara-esque smirk, and she stumbled backwards a step at the sight, catching herself with one of her hands before she fell to the floor. "I _said_ ," he repeated, taking a casual step forward, "oba-san, _why are you_ **_lying_ ** _?_ "

"I - I'm not - " she stuttered, trying to discredit him, most likely.

He interrupted her before she could form a cohesive thought: "Your grandmother is so disappointed in you."

Because that was something a psychic would say. At least, that's what they did in Ran's bad horror movies.

The woman went pale, like something had sucked all the color from her skin, and her hands shook once, violently, before she got her reaction under control. "H-how did you know - ?"

It was an easy enough deduction - the Detective Boys could have managed it. Would have, in fact, after spending a year near his crime-attracting body. The kidnapper was in her late forties, most likely, so it was possible that her parents were still alive. However, her grandparents more than likely weren't. And, as a woman in a Western society, she was more likely to have formed a close attachment to the female members of her family. It was self-explanatory from there.

"She's wagging her finger at you," Conan continued and watched, satisfied, as the kidnapper's joints buckled beneath her, sending her collapsing towards the ground. Her purse fell open with the movement, and Conan caught a glimpse of the name tag sewn inside.

He didn't bother suppressing his smirk, instead letting it widen into something that was borderline unsettling. "Hey, Linda Michaels-san, why were you kidnapping that girl?"

As if he had planned in, the train jolted to a stop.

(He had, in fact, planned it.)

The woman - Linda Michaels, according to her purse tag - started hyperventilating, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes.

As soon as the doors opened, she scrambled for her purse and stumbled off the train, too fast for any of the other passengers to do anything about it, as stunned still as they were. The teenager from before was still filming the encounter, too shocked to do anything else. So it was up to him, Conan supposed, to make sure that the woman didn't escape.

He grimaced, then sprinted off after her in a flash, because unfortunately using an inflatable soccer ball in an enclosed space like that was a _bad idea_ at the best of times. Besides, he didn't know how many he had left, much less when he would be able to get back to Agasa-hakase for a refill.

The sprinting part could only last long enough to get him off the train, though, because there was of course a bunch of people trying to get _on_ the train, who had no idea that because of their eagerness to get wherever it was they were trying to go, they would be unintentionally letting a kidnapper escape the hands of the law.

(As regrettably tiny as they were.)

Conan had to shove people's legs aside as he struggled to move through the crowd, barely catching glimpses of the woman's relatively distinctive hat as she bobbed in and out of view. The only advantage to the situation was that she also had to wade through the crowd, and she didn't have the advantage of appearing young enough that she could get away with being impolite. Conan, on the other hand, could judiciously apply his sharp elbows to the fleshy parts of the adults nearby, and they barely paid him any mind.

Still, though. Her legs were longer, and she was more visible than him since she was at most people's eye level. Therefore, she was able to break free of the crowd of people trying to squeeze onto the train far more easily than Conan could, unremarkable as she passed through them like a ghost -

Oh.

There's an idea.

Conan managed to spot a hole in the crowd of lower limbs that looked like it led to the edge of the crowd and dove for it, rolling to his feet and simultaneously taking out his bow tie in the process. He moved the dial to something that resembled what he remembered of Toichi-ojisan's voice - even though Conan had really only met him a couple of times, he still sometimes watched the videos online. They were a good way to figure out sleight-of-hand, which was remarkably useful for a detective. Especially one who had a tendency to run into Kaitou KID.

Conan had never really heard Toichi-ojisan speak English before, though, so the dial settings were only a rough guess. He wasn't even sure Toichi-ojisan could speak English, apart from _Ladies and Gentleman, welcome,_ and _one, two, three_ . That didn't stop him from shouting through the bow tie, _"Hey! Stop her! She's a kidnapper!"_

(He wasn't prepared for the twinge of pain Toichi-ojisan's voice caused, and wasn't quite sure why he'd felt it in the first place. It wasn't as if he'd interacted with him all that much. Not really, anyway.)

The stragglers abruptly parted for him, looking around to see who had spoken, who could possibly be a kidnapper, but Conan paid them no mind as he zeroed in on the woman. She turned around, a terrified expression flitting across her face, then she spotted him running directly towards her and let out a short, high-pitched scream. She spun on her heel and ran, as much as she could in her heels (a reasonable height for anything except running, Sonoko would say), towards the exit. Conan was mildly impressed by her speed.

Her speed didn't matter much, though, when she ran directly into Detective Inspector Lestrade and his entourage.

"O-Oh dear, I'm so sorry - " she said, flustered, patting at Lestrade's jacket, where she'd accidentally rammed into him.

"It's fine, miss," Lestrade replied, dusting off his jacket - which caused it to fall open, revealing his police badge.

Linda turned paler than KID's suit.

Conan took that opportunity to exclaim, grinning so widely that he could hardly see, "Hey, hey, Linda Michaels-san, you never answered my question!"

Linda Michaels broke, almost immediately. Conan was a little pleased with himself, really, because she'd taken one look at the badge in Lestrade's coat and then glanced back at him, then decided that confessing to the police that she'd been kidnapping a minor was preferable to getting anywhere near him.

That was, like, Haibara levels of intimidation, which was something he'd always aspired to reach.

Cool.

Conan dragged his attention from the kidnapper, who was giving a _very_ thorough confession right into Lestrade's tape recorder, and immediately saw something almost as gratifying.

Sherlock had a child clinging to him, and he did not look particularly happy about that fact. Conan wondered how that had happened. Of the four, Sherlock didn't really appear to be the most...welcoming. Or, well, most non-threatening? His face - from Conan's angle, at least - kind of looked like he'd sniffed something particularly unpleasant and had turned his nose down at it. Which wasn't usually a face young children looked at and thought, _ah, yes, that's the one, that's the face of someone who will help me._

Conan was more interested in snapping a picture, however, because who knew when such a sight would be available again. Unfortunately, both his phones were, of course, still out of battery, but - oh, wait.

He still had Sherlock's phone, didn't he.

Conan almost smacked himself on the head, but refrained, instead taking out Sherlock's phone and keying in John Watson's birthday - he also wanted to know if that was just a coincidence or something, because _really -_ before snapping a picture and sending it to his Conan phone. He then erased the number from Sherlock's history, the picture from his photos album, and the message itself from the sent box.

Actually, since he already had a phone out…

Conan keyed in the number for one of Haibara's burner phones. She kept a couple around Agasa-hakase's house as a back-up plan, just in case, and Conan had of course memorized all the numbers. Texting her personal phone number on an unknown phone was just _asking_ her to bring her wrath down upon him, so obviously he chose a burner phone number.

He had _some_ self-preservation.

Even messaging a burner phone was risky, because who knew what Sherlock's usual message pattern looked like and if one to Japan looked out of place, but Conan was going to take that risk.

In code, of course, because he wasn't _stupid._

He used a cipher that he and Haibara had come up with for emergencies, because they were both borderline paranoid _something_ would happen and they'd need to be able to contact each other subtly, from a range longer than the Detective Boy badges could manage, or about something that they didn't want the kids listening in on. It ended up being an odd mixture of Japanese, English, and French, and then a _lot_ of numerical finagling. It took them a month to create, then six months or so to actually learn well enough that they could decode a message reasonably quickly, but it was practically unhackable.

(His father had tried and admitted defeat after a week.)

He ends up with:

7 1 41 -

40 1. 30 13. 29 13 376 35 38 26. 30 13 22 18. 22 24 13. 3 1.

32 1 14. 33 40 45 10 1.

4-6. 12. 35 307 13. 177. 7. 386 40. 20 36 176 7.

14-29 13. 30 406. 386 30 456.

\- 22 20 13 11 28

...which was an extensively complicated way to say that he's in England, doesn't know how he got there or why, that his phone is dead but he's mostly safe, and that she shouldn't respond to this number.

Conan cleared the number and message from Sherlock's history, then slipped it back into his pocket just in time to see Lestrade handing off Linda Michaels to a beat cop to take to the station, rubbing his fingers against the bridge of his nose and looking like he wished he were anywhere but there - which was fair, honestly. Who _wanted_ to be even marginally responsible for a small child who ran into more crimes in one day than most people did in their entire lives _and_ was apparently psychic.

Conan _also_ wished he wasn't a crime magnet, but that ship had pretty clearly sailed by now.

Lestrade sighed deeply and turned to Conan. "Do I want to know?" he asked wearily.

Conan shrugged. "Do I need to give a police report?" he responded blithely. "There's probably a video of it online by now - try searching something like 'psychic child on the tube' for today and it'll probably come up!"

John snickered under his breath, then pretended he was helping Sherlock figure out how to deal with the tiny human latched onto his coat when Lestrade shot a half-hearted glare his way.

Lestrade looked like he was regretting any choice he'd ever made that led him to that moment. Conan was sympathetic. "I - you know what? The recording of her confession is probably enough to get her convicted. We don't need to bother with your testimony, Conan." He looked like he was trying to convince himself, and was almost succeeding.

Then Conan grinned beatifically. "Are you sure, Lestrade-keibu? 'Cause if your mic is still on, I can just say what happened that way!"

Sherlock broke in: "Yes, Lestrade, have him give his testimony," he said imperiously, although the effect was ruined by the way he was shaking the leg the girl - Rebecca - had managed to latch onto, much like a koala bear.

John had given up on getting Sherlock to understand that this was not, in fact, the way to treat a child and started filming. Rebecca seemed to be having the time of her life, so it was probably fine.

Lestrade stared at them for a long moment, then rolled his eyes towards the sky, as if begging for patience, then turned back to Conan. "Do you want to give testimony, Conan?" he asked wearily.

That gave Conan pause because - did he? He'd offered mostly as a joke (and maybe to irritate Lestrade just a little bit), but they'd probably need a witness testimony to get the kidnapper convicted - and more than just Rebecca's. Would his add all that much evidence? Especially since he _also_ looked like a child.

(And did he really want his voice on record somewhere?)

Conan shrugged. Both options had pros and cons, but only one of one those options resulted in a kidnapper going free.

Guess which option he chose.

"I don't mind, Lestrade-keibu!" Conan chirped, mind whirring away as he tried to come up with a way to make 'I'm psychic' make logical sense in a police report - preferably in a way that made it seem like he was used to such a conundrum.

Conan was pretty sure he was the only one present fluent in Japanese Sign Language, unless Sherlock had picked it up for some godforsaken reason, and anyway Conan didn't actually know any of the requisite vocabulary for 'ghosts' or 'psychics' or whatever. So that was out.

...Oh.

Of course.

Lestrade just went with it - because, at that point, that was really all he _could_ do. "Okay, Conan," he said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose again, trying to stave off a headache. "Just - tell me what happened, and the recorder will pick it up."

Conan rolled his eyes expressively. "I _know_ how to do a police report, Lestrade-keiji!" he said, mimicking the way Mitsuhiko said things he thought should be obvious to adults, even though there was really no reason for them to know.

Lestrade closed his eyes for a long moment. Sherlock stopped trying to shake the tiny child off of his leg for long enough to look intrigued.

Conan took that as an acknowledgement of his prowess and continued: "Conan Edogawa, age 7, of Beika-shi - uh, City, in Japan. I saw this lady - Linda Michaels-san - on the train and she was holding onto Rebecca-san's shoulder super tightly, and the people around them were kind of whispering like something weird was going on - " Conan paused for a moment to mouth ' _ghosts'_ exaggeratedly. Lestrade very carefully did not react, even though it looked like he really, really wanted to. "So I went over to Rebecca-san and she said that she was in trouble!" Conan paused long enough to mouth, again, _'her ghosts said so!'_ John shook his head in bewilderment at the sight, probably because of how over-the-top Conan was being with his mouthing. He was probably used to reading less exaggerated lip movements.

"And so I distracted Michaels-san while Rebecca-san got off the train, and then Michaels-san got angry because she lost Rebecca-san, so I kept distracting her so she didn't start getting, uh - violet? Is that the word? I dunno, punching people and stuff. And then she started talking about why she had Rebecca-san with her on the subway, but she was pretty clearly _lying_ \- " He made eye contact with Lestrade and mouthed, _Toichi-ojisan told me._ He could make whatever he wanted of that. " - so I asked her why she was lying and she started acting really _weird_ . So I told her that her grandma would be disappointed in her, 'cuz what kind of grandma _wouldn't_ be, and then the train stopped and she ran away! And I chased her, 'cuz that's what detectives do! And also I didn't want her to get away, 'cuz she's a kidnapper, duh." Conan shrugged. "And then she ran into you and started confessing. And you were there for that part, so."

He was a little proud of that story, actually. Most of it wasn't even a lie. Even the bit about Toichi-ojisan telling him about the woman lying, since, _technically_ , Toichi-ojisan _had_ taught him some of the tells people had when they were lying or bluffing, and then had taught his mom the rest, and Conan had learnt them from her. So it was even true enough to be admissible in a court of law, probably.

Lestrade cleared his throat, then turned off the recorder. "Thanks, Conan," he said, resigned to his fate. At least he didn't have to explain the whole 'psychic kid' thing to his department head, though - Conan would've thought he'd be at least mildly pleased about that.

So he went ahead and said it.

"See, it's true! And this way you don't have to explain me to your boss!"

Lestrade looked like he needed a nap.

Fair.

And then Sherlock jumped in: "You've done that before, haven't you." It wasn't a question.

Conan felt himself freeze for a split second involuntarily, even though he'd tried to prepare himself for Sherlock's scrutinizing ice-blue gaze. Clearly it hadn't worked.

So instead of what he'd initially planned to say - a confirmation, of sorts - he made his eyes skitter away from Sherlock, deliberately avoiding eye contact with him. "I - I don't know what you're talking about, Sherlock-niisan!" he said, making it painfully obvious that he did, in fact, know what Sherlock was talking about.

Sherlock snorted. " _Please._ Refrain from your _pathetic_ attempts - "

Before he could finish, though, John gave him a Look, and Sherlock _faltered_. Wow. John Watson was really something.

"That's not how you talk to children, Sherlock," John said blandly. And Sherlock rolled his eyes in response, sure, but he _listened._

Wow. What sort of witchcraft was this?

(And where could Conan get some?)

" _Fine."_ Sherlock looked irate, but, well, that was to be expected. "Conan, you shouldn't lie to adults," he rephrased, talking in a sing-songy voice Conan had never heard before that made him think Sherlock was imitating someone, and that it was _not_ a particularly flattering impersonation.

Conan let his lower lip tremble. "B-but...if I d-don't lie, then no one _b-believes_ me," he mumbled, blinking too hard a couple times to make sure his eyes shone with unshed tears.

It was a carefully calculated action, designed to guilt-trip Lestrade (who had at least two children, and was therefore conditioned to act at the sight of tears), make a shield of John (a doctor - used to tears, of course, but not enough to cancel out his instincts to comfort and protect the small child), and intrigue and evoke sympathy in Sherlock (who'd spent _years_ trying to get people to believe him about cases).

And it worked beautifully.

Lestrade sighed and patted Conan on the head - which he bore with minimal grace and a barely hidden grimace - then said, "We believe you, Conan. I promise."

"...Can we go to Lucy Collins-san's house now?" Conan asked pitifully, gazing up at Lestrade with watery eyes and making himself seem as small as possible. "Please? I just want to - to _help._ "

And really, how could Lestrade refuse?

.

.

.

.

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notes:

haha it's been a while huh

i finished my piece for the server collab though! it ended up being approximately 45k longer than I was expecting, but. it's done. if you like my hero academia and/or leverage, you should check it out.

also i did fictober. kinda. so i have a bunch of new conan oneshots/aus to make up for putting this aside for like...4 months eheheh.

idk if i'll continue to update this on the loose 'once a month' schedule i had because im at university with a full course load plus i'm a TA for two classes. also i'm studying abroad next semester. but i really like writing this story, so it's definitely not abandoned even if it takes a while to update.

(spoiler alert: i did not stick to a 'once a month schedule')

also. movie 23. holy effing shit. it was wild.

my tumblr is blenderfullasarcasm. check me out on there. i've also been working on doing some doujinshi translations so. yeah.

i've been thinking about maye making a discord server for this fic? idk if anyone would be interested though.


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